darkvegas

Welcome to the dark side!
https://dark.vegas

Last Notes

2026-10-16 04:25:17 UTC

A bug in Pirate Chain's code let an attacker create about 40M extra ARRR coins, increasing the total supply by roughly 20%. The dev team asked everyone to stop transacting while they prepare a chain rollback.
https://xitter.cf/PirateChain/status/2110556351948595344
Pirate Chain is a modified dPoW fork of Zcash. Earlier this year, Zcash and Zano suffered from inflation bugs. Zcash migrated to another shielded pool, while Zano rolled the chain back by one month to remove counterfeit ZANO from circulation.
https://dark.vegas/zano-vs-zcash-inflation-bugs

2026-10-14 06:27:54 UTC

Cake is the most popular mobile wallet and a major sponsor in the Monero ecosystem, but the community is split on whether Cake is good or evil.
Let's look at the major accusations related to KYC confiscation, VPN blocking, Chainalysis node, ToS, centralized node, lobbying, and see if any of them hold the ground.
https://dark.vegas/evil-cake

2026-10-11 05:30:06 UTC

A federal judge in Chicago sentenced Raheim Hamilton, a co-founder of darknet marketplace Empire Market, to 40 years behind bars. Hamilton also agreed to forfeit 1,230 BTC to the US gov, which is the largest known state holder of Bitcoin due to frequent asset seizures.
Uncle Sam began staking sats back in 2013 by seizing 144,000 BTC from Silk Road, the first successful DNM that accepted BTC payments. Its founder Ross Ulbricht spent 12 years in prison before being pardoned by Trump following Bitcoin lobbying efforts.
Apart from DOJ seizures, the SEC is another agency building a portfolio through frequent fines against crypto companies. I wonder when the feds will start distributing these assets to "victims"?
https://decrypt.co/380561/empire-market-co-creator-sentenced-to-40-years-over-430m-dark-web-bazaar

2026-10-01 01:36:19 UTC

- reply

"That drama queen" here. Elon's attack on Nitter is an attack on free speech and he's using state violence to advance his case. I'm not sure why you disagree, so let's break it down. Lemme know which of these statements you disagree with and why.
1. Code is speech.
2. An attempt to censor Nitter's git repo is an attack on free speech.
3. A tweet is speech.
4. Sharing information (like a tweet) is speech.
5. An attempt to restrict people from sharing information is an attack on free speech.

2026-09-13 21:22:41 UTC

The privacy community is full of holy wars similar to the crypto world. That leads to biases and tribalism around false narratives. A good example is the Session vs SimpleX war. Both solutions are flawed walled gardens, but they are currently the best messengers in town with very different architectures and use cases.
We originally started growing our community on Session in 2021 and then slowly expanded to SimpleX a few years later. It's now time to connect both communities so people can exchange knowledge and debate architectures without unnecessary holy wars.
The first Session Simplex bridge written by @natsec is now open source, so feel free to share your feedback and submit feature requests.
https://dark.vegas/session-simplex-bridge

2026-07-19 06:51:49 UTC

- reply

"Without privacy these is no democracy"
Workshops are good, fundraising is great, but this slogan is horrible. Somebody should explain W3PN what democracy is and how we ended up in this dystopian future with the full agreement of the silent majority.

2026-07-03 23:24:35 UTC

Github and Codeberg are centralized platforms with legacy account-based architectures controlled by compliant companies based in hostile jurisdictions. Both platforms fit perfectly into a "slave tech" definition because of their legacy account-based permissioned architectures with mutable events that rely on email addresses without providing self-custody and censorship-resistance.
However, Codeberg has a slightly better reputation in the FOSS community despite having exactly the same broken architecture as Github. Using both Github and Codeberg as mirrors is fine, but pretending one is superior is just hypocrisy and laziness. If you actually develop something important that demands censorship-resistance, then go fully independent with self-hosted or p2p options.
Find better git alternatives at https://dark.vegas/git

2026-02-16 02:04:41 UTC

Most grants in the Ethereum ecosystem demand KYC, signaling that sponsors prioritize compliance over developer safety in today's hostile environment. When regulators crack down, VC-backed web3 companies and the Ethereum Foundation rush to fund legal defenses, yet the same entities require full KYC for trivial public goods grants. Besides, many of these "public goods" projects stay within Ethereum's borders, primarily benefiting ETH bag holders.
https://media.dark.vegas/spasmau01f4d16f467daabe825f38a14466dcdfe5dfe2fc48a544815a6194dad2538f4d61.mp3
Don't be fooled, Ethereum operates as a closed ecosystem competing with other networks like any VC-backed L2 or traditional blockchain, focused on user capture and revenue extraction. Its design mandates one private key and relies on a single settlement chain, lacking native interoperability.
When developers face consequences next time and companies rush to "rescue" them for good PR, we should remind people that these exact companies cultivated the very environment that leaves developers exposed. It's like western corporations going woke when it's fashionable, then pivoting conservative under new government pressure - principles bend to convenience, not conviction.
To learn more about the grim state of web3 and how VC-backed compliant companies are leeching on the Ethereum ecosystem, you can listen to the full episode of [Dark Vegas Tales #1: Ethereum runs on slave tech](https://dark.vegas/news/spasmid01c926546a09a129895305e2852b6cf0e4395d0c7dfa313f9624f999dd9c99beec).
And don't be a compliant slave, subscribe with your podcast app using this [RSS feed](https://dark.vegas/api/events?format=rss&activity=all&action=post&signer=0x404a313df99cb82425dccdbb1db07a88b2c165ec&signer=npub1c7atcdzugulqq2x8cufyycs593pmlcg85zl7gfrrgza4gyazcnqsdn5zen).
Dark Vegas Tales on [Spasm](https://dark.vegas), [Nostr](https://njump.me/npub1c7atcdzugulqq2x8cufyycs593pmlcg85zl7gfrrgza4gyazcnqsdn5zen), and IPFS: darkvegas.eth

2026-02-09 07:02:52 UTC

Each Uniswap protocol is a masterpiece of its time, but Uniswap Labs chose to operate in the most hostile jurisdiction and rely on a centralized infrastructure to run its frontend, which geo-blocks users by IP addresses and employs blockchain surveillance services like BlockAid that operate on a presumption of guilt.
https://media.dark.vegas/spasmau0153536ce6e413b1bfb4b0fae4bb8053ca13768ae324d90b682d51909bae5681ea.mp3
Uniswap also uses restrictive Business Source License that legitimizes the bullshit system, which is based on coercion, censorship, law enforcement, absurd concepts like "intellectual property", and it gives more power to the state to decide what information can be shared. Besides, Uniswap enforces anti-free speech laws across the world on behalf of one nation state government.
In 2020, Uniswap Labs panicked during the SushiSwap vampire attack and printed an unnecessary, inflationary governance token to keep liquidity from fleeing. Predictably, UNI lost 90% from its all-time high during a 2021 altcoin season pump. Only now, five years later, UNI is trying to fix its tokenomics with a burn mechanism to appease bagholders.
To its credit, Uniswap fixed a few issues shortly after the original podcast episode made waves across the crypto space. For example, Uniswap unbanned DPI and many other tokens and removed the "impersonator" flag from the SPASM token.
To learn more about the grim state of web3 and how VC-backed compliant companies are leeching on the Ethereum ecosystem, you can listen to the full episode of [Dark Vegas Tales #1: Ethereum runs on slave tech](https://dark.vegas/news/spasmid01c926546a09a129895305e2852b6cf0e4395d0c7dfa313f9624f999dd9c99beec).
And don't be a compliant slave, subscribe with your podcast app using this [RSS feed](https://dark.vegas/api/events?format=rss&activity=all&action=post&signer=0x404a313df99cb82425dccdbb1db07a88b2c165ec&signer=npub1c7atcdzugulqq2x8cufyycs593pmlcg85zl7gfrrgza4gyazcnqsdn5zen).
Dark Vegas Tales on [Spasm](https://dark.vegas), [Nostr](https://njump.me/npub1c7atcdzugulqq2x8cufyycs593pmlcg85zl7gfrrgza4gyazcnqsdn5zen), and IPFS: darkvegas.eth

2026-02-02 01:24:07 UTC

The Bankless shills sold you off to slave tech and VCs. They position themselves at the forefront of the web3 revolution, but they use banking, paywall their website behind SlaveFi payment methods, run their own compliant VC, advertise custodial exchanges with mandatory KYC, advertise tax paying services and VC-backed slave tech dressed in web3 clothing. They also legitimize state legal systems that operate without consent, applaud state-led crackdowns on fellow degens like Do Kwon and promote stablecoins, which are centralized wrappers for fiat and nation state debt.
https://media.dark.vegas/spasmau01ef6c94bf6b9d8f329423678c9a69e9807da9419fb9cd9188b51b7330400cc744.mp3
We have enough tools to escape the slave tech and build Agorist parallel financial systems, but you will never hear about that on the Bankless podcast because that doesn't pay well. For a deeper dive into the freedom tech, listen to the full episode of [Dark Vegas Tales #1: Ethereum runs on slave tech](https://dark.vegas/news/spasmid01c926546a09a129895305e2852b6cf0e4395d0c7dfa313f9624f999dd9c99beec).
And don't be a compliant slave, subscribe with your podcast app using this [RSS feed](https://dark.vegas/api/events?format=rss&activity=all&action=post&signer=0x404a313df99cb82425dccdbb1db07a88b2c165ec&signer=npub1c7atcdzugulqq2x8cufyycs593pmlcg85zl7gfrrgza4gyazcnqsdn5zen).
Dark Vegas Tales on [Spasm](https://dark.vegas), [Nostr](https://njump.me/npub1c7atcdzugulqq2x8cufyycs593pmlcg85zl7gfrrgza4gyazcnqsdn5zen), and IPFS: darkvegas.eth

2025-10-31 03:33:39 UTC

In this first episode of Dark Vegas Tales, we discuss how VC-backed compliant companies are leeching off the Ethereum ecosystem, and how adversaries are trying to hijack the cypherpunk movement with the slave tech dressed in web3 clothing.
https://media.dark.vegas/spasmau0128a0be13f78f96064dd425f0f87ee04886627b0be13836277f558b73cb841659.mp3
The episode is over 2 hours long, so you can download the mp3 file to listen with your favorite podcast app.