Hello fellow Bitcoiners, I want to wish you all a happy and sovereign 5th #bitcoin epoch! It's in that spirit that I've put a bitcoin self custody guide together that I believe if understood thoroughly can help provide you sovereignty over your #Bitcoin. This guide took a while to create but I feel it's essential to spread the word in an attempt to get as many keys into as many #bitcoiners hands as possible as soon as possible as I believe this will help spawn a more free and just world for all! With that said, if after you read and agree with the obligatory disclaimer below, please feel free to download a copy and see what you all think! #nyknyb #ThisTimeItsDifferent #FreedomMoney #RunYourOwnNode #SelfCustodialBitcoinOnly Disclaimer: Please note that the use of the guide may not be legal in all jurisdictions. It is your responsibility to understand and comply with the laws and regulations related to bitcoin self custody in your jurisdiction. I cannot be held responsible or liable for any legal consequences or liability incurred as a result of using this guide in jurisdictions where self custody practices are prohibited of restricted. Furthermore, I'm providing the self custody guide for educational purposes only. By using this guide, you acknowledge and agree that I cannot be held responsible or liable for any loss, damage, or liability incured as a result of following the guide. It is your sole responsibility to ensure the security and protection of your Bitcoin funds. I recommend that you thoroughly research and understand Bitcoin self custody practices before implementing them. By using this guide, you accept all risks and release me from any liability associated with the loss of any Bitcoin funds.

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What makes #bitcoin #FreedomMoney? To me it's about maintaining these key attributes: Decentralization Auditable 21 MM cap Permissionless Censorship & confiscation resistant Immutability All of are only possible by us running the node version we see upholding these values. If we ever get to the point where we are unable to vote for the version of the nodes that we run to establish what Bitcoin is then Bitcoin will have failed as a decentralized project and will have been captured by the traditional Finance institutions and this movement will have been killed. As I type this message it appears as though the mining pools are colluding to attack the decentralized mempool by accepting out of band fiat currency transactions which are completely invisible and absolutely go against the above key features in a variety of ways. It also seems that they have co-opted the narrative not only on the internet but at a local Grassroots level and various meetups which have been sponsored by traditional Finance firms and quietly steering the narrative to suggest that the ETFs, ordinals, inscriptions, and other attacks are actually a benefit to bitcoin and using their sheer numbers to drown out advocates who ascribe to Bitcoins decentralized, permissionless, monetary use case as it's essential feature. At this point I think it's important for us all to look into the possibility of running pre-tap root Bitcoin nodes to try to filter out all of these attacks and to also call out any of these mining pools who are adding unexpected transactions to the blocks and or accepting fiat currency bribes out of band attacking the 21 million Bitcoin cap as they trade dollars for virtual bytes versus sats for virtual bytes. The only way Bitcoin will succeed in its mission of separating state from currency is if we can get the key principles of what makes Bitcoin our freedom money conveyed to enough plebs and to try to clear up the confusion that the traditional Finance system is intentionally spreading throughout the community. And while I don't have all the answers, here's a few ideas that we can do to push back: -Hashers should punish pools that include TXs outside of the shared mempool & any miner taking OOB fees. -Run nodes you view as the true #bitcoin (pre taproot at least IMO) -Advocate for custom mining templates for pools/hashers. -Get active in your community and go to your meetups and be the vocal minority to push these core freedom principles and pushing back against the subversive traditional Finance folks who are trying to steer the narrative! -Spread the word. I truly believe that together we can and will achieve the goal of creating a sound money that is independent of the traditional Finance markets and will be separate from State. Let's get it!

Why on earth would we sell our precious #bitcoin for 100k when #WallStreet must buy #bitcoin regardless of the USD price? IMO 100k is a psyop & is being repeatedly touted on #btc X to get OGs primed to transfer their keys to these $ gatekeepers. Don't fall for it! Lets separate state & currency like the good Satoshi intended! ✌️

Then They (REALLY) Fight You! From my perspective, Bitcoin is currently undergoing a multitude of attacks let's break them down one by one. Political / Legal. The current political attacks being lead by senator Elizabeth Warren and cronies was initiated after being directed by Jamie Dimon (who has since been appointed as the AP or Authorized Participant for the largest BTC ETF). These attackers seem to be doing their very best to legally separate plebs from their sats while aligning Wall Street to become the custodians of our freedom money. Technical / Social. The L1 Bitcoin network is currently being spammed by Ordinals and Inscriptions which is prematurely increasing the L1 transaction fees. This is pricing out many lower net worth folks from participating in L1 self custody. This attack seems to have a large amount of buy in from NFT pushers and alt coiners as well as a good chunk of the miners as most of the larger miners are being short sighted and looking to maximize profits in dollars as much and as quickly as possible. This has lead to a huge battle within the Bitcoin community and it currently remains to be seen how this will play out. Wall Street Attacks. By now everyone knows that Wall Street is here as they have had their ETFs green light. If the first two days of trading are any guide of what's to come, then I'm afraid to say its starting to appear they're going to buy OTC and dump spot market in an effort to control the dollar price of Bitcoin. Just look at what Coinbase has said with respect to their reported $7,000,000,000 USD of OTC traded the first day ETFs did. None of course can be independently verified by any of us plebs. These ETF / Wall Street folks are asking us to invert the ethos of "Don't trust, verify." into "Trust us bro." In my view Wall Street would gladly take a substantial loss on these Bitcoin products so long by doing so they believe that it would greatly harm or destroy bitcoin in the process as Bitcoin is the largest threat to their way of life. Great so what now? Any good news or anything we can do about it? Absolutely and glad you asked! From my perspective the best part of all of this is that Bitcoin is still alive and is getting more publicity than any amount of money could have bought it! That being said I believe that all of this noise will get people to understand what Bitcoin is, why it's important, and eventually will understand that the only way to get it to succeed and create a more just and equitable world for all will be to hold Bitcoin in self custody. IMO they will realize that to do this in the most effective way that they will need to minimize their spheres of trust and will learn about how to create their own entropy with simple analog methods offline (such as flipping coins 256 times) and creating their own BIP 39 seeds. They'll also learn how to run their own nodes for verification and to transmit and receive their own bitcoin transactions. These actions will allow for the dollar price of Bitcoin to break free from their manipulation efforts and will eventually get us to a better bitcoin centric world that will break the monopoly of value creation and distribution from centralized control.

As of today it's official, until the day comes when enough folks learn why and how to take self custody of their #bitcoin    into addresses they roll their own completely offline and validate own TXNS w/ their own nodes, the fiat price of #bitcoin    will be a #WallStreet play thing. 🍿

With the invention of #bitcoin Satoshi created a doorway to exit the fiat system. It's now up to us whether we have the will, and ability to use the (private) keys to unlock it. Don't paper /ETF /IOU with #btc folks. Use your own keys to set you free! #SelfCustodialBitcoinOnly #nyknyb

It's puzzling why the #Bitcoin core team doesn't simply have toggle switches or option values for the config file that allows you to enable or disable the various controversial features that they add to core such as taproot, segwit, etc. That way folks can always upgrade their nodes to stay current with any bug fixes 🤔

OK so if my understanding is correct then theses potentially upcoming spot #bitcoin ETFs are BINO (Bitcoin In Name Only) as they are fiat in and fiat out only without the option of #btc redemption. The only positive aspect from them I can see is that they will get people curios to learn about what #btc is which will likely spur more self custody.

Happy New Year!

PSA fellow #bitcoiners! If you're also against inscriptions in the #Bitcoin mempool, just run an older version of Bitcoin core. For me v 20.x seems to be filtering out all of the #insciptions from the mempool.