Nostr notes by Michael Wilkins

Pretty good reason to sell your fiat and live on a #Bitcoin ...

2026-07-16T16:26:59Z

Pretty good reason to sell your fiat and live on a #Bitcoin standard

https://www.perplexity.ai/page/imf-s-georgieva-warns-world-ha-a4RLueCzTEaFHxDNbEVJNA

I’m jealous, looks like you guys are getting some snow at the ...

2026-02-12T17:02:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…653f
_________________________

I’m jealous, looks like you guys are getting some snow at the moment.

I’m tired of scrolling LinkedIn and seeing the same posts on ...

2026-02-07T22:46:37Z

I’m tired of scrolling LinkedIn and seeing the same posts on repeat:

“Bitcoin is down $66k.”
“Bitcoin is down 50%.”
“Bitcoin is failing.”

Every speculator has an opinion.
Everyone pretends they know what’s happening.

Almost none of it matters.

Because nothing fundamental about Bitcoin has changed.

Bitcoin is not a stock.
It is not a tech company.
It is not a yield product.
It is not a macro trade.

Bitcoin is a monetary protocol.

Here’s what hasn’t changed:

The supply is still fixed at 21 million

Blocks are still produced roughly every 10 minutes

Nodes still independently verify every rule

Miners still secure the network via proof-of-work

Difficulty still adjusts automatically

No central party can change the rules

That’s Bitcoin.

The only thing that’s moved is the fiat exchange rate people use to talk about it.

When people say “Bitcoin is down,” what they actually mean is:

One unit of Bitcoin currently exchanges for fewer dollars.

That tells you something about dollars, not about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin doesn’t promise price stability in fiat terms.
It promises monetary integrity.

It removes discretionary money creation.
It removes counterparty risk.
It removes the need to speculate just to preserve purchasing power.

That’s why so many people misunderstand it.

Most people don’t want money.
They want more fiat.

So they trade Bitcoin instead of using it.
They time tops and bottoms.
They chase narratives.
They panic when the unit of account they don’t trust moves against them.

But when you stop pricing your life in fiat and start pricing it in Bitcoin, the picture flips:

Goods get cheaper over time.
Savings stop evaporating.
Long-term planning becomes possible again.

That’s the point.

Bitcoin doesn’t need defending during drawdowns.
It needs understanding.

Price noise will come and go.
The protocol remains consistent.

Tick tock. Next Block

That’s #Bitcoin

I have noticed a growing number of Monero supporters lately. ...

2026-02-02T10:08:49Z

I have noticed a growing number of Monero supporters lately.

After several debates, a pattern becomes clear.
Most arguments rest on Keynesian assumptions.

This matters.

Keynesian economics treats money as a tool to manage outcomes.
Issuance is flexible.
Inflation is acceptable.
Stability is prioritised over constraint.

Scarcity is viewed as a problem.
Not a requirement.

This framework dominates modern finance.
It is also why the world looks the way it does today.

Persistent inflation.
Rising asset prices.
Falling purchasing power.
Increasing dependence on subsidies and intervention.

These outcomes are not accidents.
They are features of the model.

Monero mirrors this thinking at the protocol level.

Supply is not capped.
Issuance never reaches zero.
Security is subsidised through ongoing dilution.
Fees are assumed to be insufficient on their own.

This is Keynesian logic expressed in code.

The argument is familiar.
Some inflation is necessary.
The system must be supported.
Hard limits are unrealistic.

Bitcoin rejects these assumptions.

Supply is fixed.
Issuance trends to zero.
Security must be paid explicitly by users.
Scarcity is enforced, not managed.

This is a hard money framework.

Monero is not fraudulent.
It is ideological.

It encodes the belief that inflation is functional and necessary.
That belief is Keynesian.

So the distinction is simple.

Bitcoin is sound money.
Monero is Keynesian digital cash.

Price volatility doesn’t invalidate Bitcoin. It exposes who ...

2026-02-02T08:25:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…wasq
_________________________

Price volatility doesn’t invalidate Bitcoin.
It exposes who still measures value in fiat.

Fear shows up when Bitcoin is treated as an investment instead of money.

If your unit of account is dollars, every drawdown feels existential.

If your unit of account is sats, nothing fundamental has changed.

Bitcoin doesn’t fix retirement by “number go up.”

It fixes retirement by restoring saving, time preference, and sovereignty.

I’ve lived on a Bitcoin standard for over a decade.

No debt. Lower cost of living over time.
Not because price was smooth — but because my productivity was stored in sound money instead of melting currency.

The problem Bitcoin solves hasn’t gone away.

But neither has the confusion between price and value.

Short-term volatility is the cost of exiting a broken system early.

Long-term stability comes from holding money that can’t be debased.

Zoom out.
Stack sats.
Self-custody.
Produce value.

The rest is noise. Especially the fiat price.

#Bitcoin #SoundMoney #LiveOnSats #PriceInSats

#Bitcoin is down ~6% today. Emotions are up. This is normal in a ...

2026-01-30T08:31:34Z

#Bitcoin is down ~6% today.
Emotions are up. This is normal in a fiat-priced world.

Short-term price moves are noise created by leveraged markets, traders, and liquidity flows. They do not change what Bitcoin is.

If you price your life in Bitcoin terms, something important becomes clear:

Over the last10 years, life has become cheaper, not more expensive when living on a Bitcoin standard.

While people living entirely in fiat struggle with rising rents, food, energy, and debt, those saving in Bitcoin have seen their purchasing power increase over time.

I’ve have personally lived on a Bitcoin standard for over a decade.

My cost of living has gone down.
My savings have strengthened.
I carry no fiat clown world debt.

Not because I speculate.
But because I focus on producing value in the economy, I get paid for that productivity, and store it in Bitcoin.

This is Austrian economics in practice:
• Create real value
• Avoid debt
• Save in hard money
• Let time work for you

The fiat price of Bitcoin means nothing long term.

What matters is:
• How many sats you hold
• Whether you self-custody
• Whether you can earn, save, and eventually spend sats

Bitcoin doesn’t need to “go up.”
Fiat needs to keep falling — and it always does long term.

When measured against an infinite, debasing currency, Bitcoin’s upside is asymmetrical by design. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.

Stay calm.
Ignore the charts.
Be productive.
Stack sats.

I’m speaking about this a lot at the moment because an ...

2026-01-05T21:10:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…tv83
_________________________

I’m speaking about this a lot at the moment because an increasing amount of people are fixated on price, exposure, ETFs and treasury companies and not the monetary protocol that Bitcoin is.

Bitcoin’s design assumes personal responsibility. Self-custody ...

2026-01-05T03:29:38Z

Bitcoin’s design assumes personal responsibility.

Self-custody is not a preference.
It is a requirement of the system.

When Bitcoin is held through an intermediary, ownership becomes conditional. Access depends on policy, solvency, and permission. The holder no longer controls settlement. They hold a claim, not the asset itself.

This recreates the structure Bitcoin was designed to remove.

Self-custody restores finality.
If you control the keys, you control the bitcoin.
No counterparty is required to approve, reverse, or honour the transaction.

Running a node completes this.

A node does not create Bitcoin.
It verifies it.

By running a node, you independently enforce the rules you rely on. You decide what is valid. You do not outsource consensus to miners, exchanges, ETFs, or developers. Without nodes, Bitcoin becomes a set of promises rather than a protocol.

Verification is the separation of Bitcoin from trust.

Paper Bitcoin emerges when verification is abandoned.

ETFs, custodial accounts, treasury vehicles, and synthetic exposure all increase price exposure while reducing monetary integrity. They concentrate coins, fragment ownership, and introduce leverage. More claims are created than bitcoin available for settlement.

This is how gold was neutralised.
It is how fiat systems are maintained.

Paper markets suppress volatility until they fail. When confidence breaks, claims exceed reserves and settlement becomes impossible. The underlying asset survives. The claims do not.

Bitcoin resists this only if users do.

Self-custody prevents rehypothecation.
Nodes prevent rule changes by decree.
Usage prevents capture.

Bitcoin does not need institutional endorsement to function.
It needs individuals who verify and settle honestly.

Hard money only works if it is used as hard money.

Everything else is convenience layered on top of risk.

The protocol is simple.
The responsibility is not optional.

#Bitcoin #SelfCustody #NodeRunner

Over the past few days, I’ve been involved in a long debate ...

2025-12-29T08:38:05Z

Over the past few days, I’ve been involved in a long debate about #Bitcoin, #money, and #economic growth. Below summarises the debate outside of the comments we have had back and forth.

What became clear is that most disagreements about Bitcoin are not really about Bitcoin.

They are about which economic framework you start from.

Two schools of thought

Most modern economics taught in universities today is derived from Keynesian and neo-Keynesian models.

In this framework:
• Money is a policy tool.
• Credit expansion is necessary for growth.
• Debt is not a problem if it funds activity.
• Inflation is tolerated, even encouraged, to stimulate spending.
• Economic health is measured primarily through GDP.

Within this model, a fixed supply monetary system looks dangerous.
If money cannot expand, the assumption is that growth will stall, liquidity will dry up, and the system will collapse under its own weight.

This is why many people instinctively conclude that Bitcoin “cannot work” as money.

There is another school of thought, often referred to as classical or Austrian economics, which starts from different assumptions. This is where Bitcoiners sit.

In this framework:
• Money is a measuring tool, not a control mechanism.
•Growth comes from productivity, innovation, and efficient coordination of capital.
• Credit should emerge from real savings, not monetary expansion.
• Inflation distorts price signals and transfers wealth.
• Falling prices due to productivity are a feature, not a failure.

From this perspective, a fixed or hard monetary base is not a limitation.
It is a discipline.

Why universities teach what they teach

Modern states operate on debt-based monetary systems. Governments, banks, and institutions depend on the ability to expand the money supply.

It is therefore not surprising that:
• Economic models that justify managed money dominate academia.
• Models that limit state discretion are treated as historical or impractical.
• Monetary failure is usually framed as “policy error,” not systemic design.

This doesn’t require malice or conspiracy.
Systems tend to teach what sustains them.

Historical evidence is often misread

Empires did not collapse because money was “too hard.”

They collapsed because money was debased.
• Rome did not fall under a fixed monetary system. It progressively reduced silver content in its coinage to fund military and state spending. Trust eroded, prices rose, and economic coordination broke down.
• Weimar Germany did not fail due to hard money, but due to rapid monetary expansion to service war debts.
• Zimbabwe did not collapse because of sanctions alone. Monetary issuance was used to paper over structural collapse, destroying the currency.
• Time and again, monetary expansion is used as a short-term solution that creates long-term instability.

Hard money systems did not “fail.”
They were abandoned when political constraints became inconvenient.

Where Bitcoin fits

Bitcoin does not ban credit.
It bans base-layer monetary manipulation.

Its base layer is slow by design because it prioritises final settlement, not throughput. This is not new. Gold functioned the same way for centuries. Higher layers always emerged on top of sound settlement layers.

Bitcoin separates:
• Money from policy
• Settlement from payments
• Value storage from discretionary issuance

When people argue that Bitcoin must adopt inflation, tail emissions, or permanent issuance to “support growth,” they are assuming growth must come from monetary expansion.

Bitcoin challenges that assumption.

It forces growth to come from:
• Better coordination
• Better incentives
• Better productivity

Why the disagreement persists

If you believe:
• Money must be managed
• Growth requires issuance
• Stability comes from flexibility

Bitcoin looks flawed.

If you believe:
• Money should constrain power
• Growth should reflect reality
• Stability comes from rules

Bitcoin looks inevitable.

This is not a debate about intelligence, credentials, or good intentions.

It is a debate about what money is allowed to do.

Bitcoin did not create this disagreement.

It simply made it impossible to ignore.

Thank you for the kind words.

2025-12-17T18:47:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…sg6y
_________________________

Thank you for the kind words.

Is there any possibility to ship this to the UK?

2025-12-10T18:07:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…svjz
_________________________

Is there any possibility to ship this to the UK?

Lately I’ve been thinking about how unhealthy most social ...

2025-12-08T05:21:06Z

Lately I’ve been thinking about how unhealthy most social platforms have become. X gets all the attention for being toxic, but truthfully the rot is everywhere.

X is designed to keep you in a loop of negativity. Outrage, fear, conflict, repeat.. and when it’s not that, it’s hype boys from fintwit promoting some bullshit trading strategy.

Instagram is the opposite flavour of the same problem. Endless perfection theatre. Everyone pretending their life is perfect when everyone secretly knows it is not. The whole thing is one big performance to protect the illusion.

LinkedIn might actually be the worst. A never-ending wall of corporate circle jerking, humble-brags, fake success stories and people clapping for themselves in the hope others clap back. Steven Bartlett, seems to be the ring leader here. It is less a professional network and more an attention marketplace where authenticity quietly goes to die.

Not to mention Facebook is just a digital retirement village these days. Boomers talking about their all-inclusive cruises, funded by inflated property prices and the distortions of the fiat clown world. A place where yesterday’s economic luck gets paraded as personal brilliance.

TikTok. YouTube. All of them run the same playbook. They do not optimise for connection, truth, or human wellbeing. They optimise for whatever keeps you scrolling long enough to show you another advert. That is the business model. That is the incentive structure. That is the problem.

People aren’t broken. The platforms are. They are built on a foundation of emotional manipulation and attention extraction because that is what the ad-driven, fiat-fuelled economy demands.

This is why decentralised protocols like Nostr feel refreshing. No algorithms trying to control what you see. No company harvesting your psychology for profit. Just people, conversations, and actual freedom to choose how you engage.

I think more of us are waking up to how toxic the legacy platforms have become. And honestly, the quicker the old social media models die, the better.

A healthier internet is possible. It just requires building systems that respect authentic human connection rather than exploiting it.

If there are any #bitcoiners that #Snowboard or #Splitboard ...

2025-10-13T15:01:59Z

If there are any #bitcoiners that #Snowboard or #Splitboard let’s connect.

When the stock market and Bitcoin sells off from Trumps tweets, ...

2025-10-12T13:51:03Z

When the stock market and Bitcoin sells off from Trumps tweets, but Gold holds steady. You know the market still misunderstands Bitcoin.

The lords of leverage get wiped out. Because they still think Bitcoin is a get rich quick scheme, when it’s not.

The tweets were about tariffs. Bitcoin has nothing to do with tariffs. Bitcoin is digital gold, hard money, store of value, medium of exchange. Permission-less money.

We are still really early. Use these dumps as an opportunity to accumulate more cheap sats.

The US government along with every other western government are broke.

They will turn to the money printer to try and mask the atrocities they and central banks have created.

Just Bitcoin and chill.

#Bitcoin #hardmoney #financialfreedom

Nostr event nevent1qqs2ggg5sehkpka3aw2j9pd27etc3ldr74c239pqjfsf5zrypfya7fgzyqzayz94fm08sgvvjdey9h69nqmc6t6mgw7yzpd4ta93nxn0mklhsmzyzwr

2025-10-09T17:12:13Z

Decided to shut down my X account and only hangout on Nostr.