Hey, bitcoiner!
Twelve years ago this week, the exchange rate of Bitcoin reached $10 for the very first time. Of course, Bitcoin took a nosedive afterward, convincing many that it was all over. People were panic-selling their magical internet money, and blaming Bitcoin for every possible sin. The only thing that's changed after twelve years is the rate of bitcoin against dirty fiat; people are still buying bitcoin in an attempt to get rich quick, and if it doesn't live up to their expectations of instant exponential growth, they complain about anything and everything, except their own greed. HODL on, dear friends, don't trade!
Hot Off the Press:
🇨🇿 BTCPrague
🕵️ 80% of Ordinals belong to a single entity?
🗣️ OKX promotes Ponzi schemes
🏙️ The author of "The Bitcoin Standard" will help build the Bitcoin Standard Country
🤡 Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
⚔️StartOS vs Umbrel
🤩 Fiatjaf on Forbes
🔐 nsecBunker: Your Nostr Keys Management Fortress
⚡️ Zapsplitter by Alby
👨💻 Releases
🐸 Meme Hub
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🇨🇿BTCPrague
Raptor, The Bitcoin Herald's ace reporter, is set to attend Europe's biggest Bitcoin conference.
From June 8th to 10th, one of the largest conferences in Europe will take place in Prague. Among the speakers are Michael Saylor, Adam Back, and many others. In addition to hundreds of speakers, the conference will feature an exhibition of products from various companies focused on Bitcoin and its community. And this is just a small part of what the conference organizers have promised.
Tickets are still available on the official conference website, starting at just 9 euros, which is significantly more budget-friendly compared to other events of this kind. The Bitcoin Herald team has already purchased tickets and will keep you informed about the most interesting events.
While we are arranging the program and reaching out to various speakers and participants from the Bitcoin and Nostr community, you can help us. If you'd like us to interview any of the conference speakers, please suggest your questions by tagging Herald on Nostr. We will do our best to provide you with unique content.
We will buy a beer for everyone who beats Raptor in the gaming zone 🍻
🕵️ 80% of Ordinals belong to a single entity?
There's chatter on the web that a lone wallet got its hands on 80% of all Ordinals inscribed in the early to mid-May period. Let's investigate!
A viral Substack story by Block21M kicked off the week. It made a bold claim that a single wallet inscribed about 80% of all Ordinals from early to mid-May, costing 1.056 BTC in network fees. But Bitfeed's developer Mononaut was quick to cry foul.
Here's the short version: a big marketplace ended up inscribing 80% of all May's Ordinals into the Bitcoin blockchain. Creating inscriptions requires an 'Ord Wallet' software running on a full node. It turned out this was a tricky task for the shitcoiners, who ended up paying extra fees to the marketplace to get their hands on desired monkey JPEGs. Running a full node needs hardware, a readiness to get down and dirty with Bitcoin, and most importantly, time - something the speculators didn't seem to care for.Get this: in the Ordinals' early days, these NFTs were traded on Discord, placing a lot of trust in middlemen.
Honestly, the whole news seems a bit overblown. The Ordinals protocol lets anyone inscribe whatever they want into the Bitcoin blockchain. Even if the news held a grain of truth, it wouldn't really shake things up.
🗣️ OKX Exchange promotes Ponzi schemes
OKX Exchange has introduced the BRC-30 (scam) token standard, which adds staking functionality.
OKX Exchange has introduced the BRC-30 token standard. The main selling point of the new shitcoin-on-top-of-bitcoin token is the possibility of staking. Users can choose which assets they want to stake in order to receive the new tokens. Both BRC-20 tokens and bitcoins are now 'stakable'.
According to the exchange, the motivation for creating the new token standard was to expand the functionality of BRC-20 tokens. The exchange's goal was to foster "greater participation, and a stronger connection between token holders and the underlying blockchain network." The protocol is completely open, and any developer can build their solutions on top.
But let's cut through the fluff here. This move is a dead ringer for a Ponzi scheme, with a shiny Bitcoin-based token façade. Dressing up these lackluster tokens with staking capabilities doesn't suddenly transform them into something of value. They're still in the game primarily for speculators to take a punt on.
🏙️ The author of "The Bitcoin Standard" will help build the Bitcoin Standard Country
, the author of "The Bitcoin Standard," will assist the government of El Salvador as an economic advisor.
On May 30th, the official Twitter account of the Bitcoin Office of El Salvador announced that Saifedean Ammous would join them as an economic advisor and help promote the adoption of Bitcoin in the country. According to official statements, Ammous has declined any remuneration for the role and is interested only in supporting President Bukele's bold policy of economic liberty and bitcoin.
He also lectured students of CUBO+, the Bitcoin & Lightning devs program.
It will be very interesting to observe the development of El Salvador's economy after Ammous's involvement as an advisor. After all, "The Bitcoin Standard'' has become a bestseller and is currently the most popular Bitcoin book. We wonder, if he arrived in El Salvador empty-handed or with a stash of vegan burgers 😄?
🤡 Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Peter Schiff, a fervent opponent of Bitcoin, attended the shitcoin conference sponsored by BitcoinSV and had his Twitter account hacked to promote the $GOLD token.
Well, you know the old saying, "A week without Schiff is a week gone to waste." This week, our favorite gold bug really went for the spotlight! Not content with just dropping his own NFT line, Peter decided to grace the infamous shitcoin conference, generously bankrolled by BitcoinSV, with his presence.
Watching Schiff's jaw drop at the idea of transferring value through Bitcoin (though a somewhat warped version of it) was pure comedy gold. The real belly-laugh, though, comes when he utters the word 'Bitcoin' in the video. One can't help but wonder, does he even know he's wandered into the wrong conference? 🤔
Towards the end of the clip, Peter's offered the chance to birth a token on Bitcoin, pegged to gold. And he goes for it, well sort of. In reality, his account got hijacked, and everyone was baited into buying this shiny new $GOLD token.
Once Schiff wrestled back control of his account, the tweet was history.
The scammers put on a show of wanting to better the web3 space with their token, but the reality was a whole different story. Word of the account hacking broke when his son chimed in on the post, urging followers to steer clear of the link. How many got reeled in? That's anybody's guess.
Even though the whole debacle was a bit of a facepalm moment, Peter got what he craved: his name splashed across countless news articles. And it's a safe bet this will give his newly minted NFT collection a solid boost. But we're here to tell you, steer clear of any "get rich quick" schemes tied to tokens from big names. Most of the time, it ends in tears.
⚔️StartOS vs Umbrel
A comparison of two popular services for setting up private servers.
This week, the team has provided a brief compare/contrast between StartOS and . While the essence of both projects remains the same - to provide users with the ability to install an operating system to run open-source applications - the details and principles of their operation have some differences:
Byte-sized Buzz:
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A 30% tax for miners in the US has been rejected.
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Google's finally jumped on the Bitcoin bandwagon, teaming up with Voltage to let folks run Bitcoin nodes on its cloud service. The news is two weeks old, but even despite their inside scoop, Google managed to be late with the announcement.
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US Senator Elizabeth Warren recently threw a spotlight on the link between Bitcoin and fentanyl trade. But here's a quirky tidbit: has she realized that the good old US dollar still holds the crown for trading illicit goods?
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A bot based on ChatGPT has been created, allowing anyone to communicate with "Satoshi Nakamoto."
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Following Binance, Bybit is leaving the Canadian market.
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Tether is investing in mining in Uruguay.
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Shitcoiners have figured out how to transfer NFTs from Ethereum to Bitcoin.
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The number of Inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain has exceeded 10,000,000.
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Bitcoin was trading at a 21% discount on Binance Australia.
- Atomic Wallet has been hacked.
🤩 Fiatjaf on Forbes
Today Forbes posted an article about and the creation of #Nostr.
While most of the article won't bring any new information to the Nostr OGs' table, we'd like to share some interesting facts about Fiatjaf, covered in the story, that we bet you weren't aware of: Few Interesting Facts About Fiatjaf
Read Fiatjaf's Nostr Manifesto: link
Forbes article: link
Here's a chuckler: The story was tweeted out by Forbes Crypto's account. Makes you think, when will the media bigwigs finally get the memo - it's Bitcoin, not 'crypto'.
🔐 nsecBunker: Your Nostr Keys Management Fortress
released nsecBunker -- a tool that helps you create, manage and authorize Nostr keys.
Tony shared a deep dive and a guide, dedicated to nsecBunker, which will help you set one up for yourself. It is a powerful tool that allows for Collective Nostr account management and even NIP-07-less logins. It is vital to understand that, as Hodlbod pointed out, "The possibilities of nsec bunker are endless." He in turn shared his ideas on how nsecBunker could be used in conjunction with a Gift Wrap proposal) to bring private groups on Nostr to life:
Here are nsecBunker's
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website: https://nsecbunker.com/
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Guide:
⚡️ Zapsplitter by Alby
To showcase the newly released webhooks Alby introduced Zapsplitter -- a tool, allowing you to automatically send a percentage of received zaps to a nostrich of your choice.
Splitting zaps has always been a desired feature, and even though it was previously possible to split with e.g. LNbits, Alby has made it super simple and efficient.
ZapSplitter is a simple showcase based on Dergigi's idea of Lightning Prisms, which allows you to configure lightning splits for your Alby account.
See details in their blogpost here.
Bitcoin
- Zeus v0.7.6-beta2 is now available for testing.
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Bitcoin Keeper v1.0.4 gives iOS users access to coin blending via Whirlpool (beta).
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ThunderHub has introduced a minor update to v0.13.19.
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Ride The Lightning has also shared its beta v.0.14.0.
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Nunchuk Desktop v1.9.19 introduced inheritance claiming.
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Fountain v0.7.0 introduced a new library, podcast transcripts, live streams and performance improvements.
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Tor v0.4.8.1-alpha introduced the use of onion Proof-of-Work aimed at combating DDoS attacks.
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BTCPay Server v1.10.0 rolled out Formbuilder UI, custom Roles and a lurking wife mode
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Electrum v4.4.4 update brought minor fixes to the software.
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Umbrel has introduced Umbrel Home -- the home server that lets you easily run open source software. The device is available for pre-order for $650.
Nostr:
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A number of updates to the Zapddit client have been released. Of the most important ones, you can now tag other users with a public key and quote notes.
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The Nostr client Primal now supports zaps. It works just like the other clients: you can customize the size of the zaps and save with a single click.
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Alby added webhooks for developers and introduced the ZapSplitter.
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Nostr.build introduced a user interface update.
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Amethyst v55.0 released.
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Snort Social has added support for L402, which allows you to hide content behind pavels.
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Damus has released the v1.5 (3) update. Most importantly, a full-screen video player has been added and the issue with GIF playback has been resolved.
Two videos by dedicated to Nostr Development Kit:
🧮 Zap Accounting with CLN and ledger-cli
Ever wondered how to keep track of your lightning transactions? article introduces a solution using CLN (core-lightning) and ledger-cli. By leveraging CLN's plugin and the power of ledger-cli, you can effortlessly manage your lightning accounting. From generating detailed reports to tracking daily donation earnings. Curious to learn more? Read Will's
🔐 Everything You Need To Know About Passphrases
An article by NVK , where he breaks down different types of wallets and explains what a passphrase is as well as the best practices in this regard: Everything You Need To Know About Passphrases
🥊 Bluesky vs. Nostr --- Which Should Developers Care About More?
In this article by Richard MacManus Rabble , explains the most important differences between Nostr, Mastodon and Bluesky that developers should keep in mind: Bluesky vs. Nostr
First two episodes of AI Unchained by :
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A New Frontier with . Listen on Fountain.
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Bias & Truth in AI with . Listen on Fountain
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Stephan Livera Podcast EP482. Burak - Ark: A new L2 protocol for Bitcoin. Listen on Fountain.
🐸 Meme Hub 💜 is a feed curated by that brings you top-notch memes from across the Nostr Universe 🛸. Want to receive the best memes in your Global feed? Add wss://feeds.nostr.band/meme to your relays. Wanna know more about Nostr Feeds? Check out Tony's guide:
Meanwhile Bitcoin Herald will be sharing the creme de creme memes with you on a weekly basis:
Here's another great collection of memes by :
