conference is over now. I likely wouldn't have come for just a bitcoin thing, but I am very interested in redecentralizing the web, so it's attachment to the nostr day pulled me in. Everyone I met was friendly and interesting and seems much more interested in making a better money system than in making money for themselves. Our government and bank money systems are dysfunctional in all kinds of ways which are often less visible than they should be too people using them, especially to those in Europe and America who benefit from the way those systems exploit the global south. I'm not convinced that fixing that would end wars and fix broken government as some seem to think, but I am sure our money is the source of many problems. There are many bright, well meaning, and intelligent people building to improve bitcoin in fascinating ways with the hope of having a parallel system to transition to. With lots of work still to be done. Can it work? I'm sure I don't know, and I'm sure even if it's a better system it'll come with it's own unfairness and cruelty. Money will continue to be a source of suck and worry. I'm told that the bigger conferences are often full of shitcoin scammers and suit wearing banksters who are in fact all in it too get rich and rip people off, but I found none of that here. Here there is a real community of people trying to make the world a better place and improve the lives of their neighbours and governance of their countries. And in the end building community is the most radical and effective way to change the world regardless of the problems of it's money system. I had a great time. Thanks to those organising it and welcome new followers. I mostly don't talk about bitcoin very much because money isn't really very interesting and I'm fast from expert on it. #bitfest #bitcoin

Finally, Martin from BTC Prague wonders how to empower bitcoiners in the UK. He's inspired by many UK scientists and artists and creators. But he thinks it's declining. Socialism and regulation reducing freedom. His home country had a peaceful velvet revolution, ending communism in the 80s. And it now has a law that there is no capital gains tax on long term held bitcoin! The UK, he thinks, needs to build new strong bitcoin based money to have it's own peaceful revolution. #bitfest #bitcoin #uk

Thomas voegtlin talks about nostr spam. It's very censorship resistance means spam can't be stopped by moderators. One way to stop spam is require proof of work before your client accepts a message. A large difficult hash. But big hashing machines are more available to spammers than people. Can't use likes or zaps cuz they can be faked with sybil attacks. Instead: notaries and proveably burned satoshis. Your public messages are classified as ham rather than spam if you burn enough money. Nostr event types to prove it are suggested. Including burning to upvote others messages Don't think I like deliberately burning the money, and seems to me a web of trust might work without doing that? Pay to post also peanizes there poor. But it isn't really burned here, it's shaed out to miners to continue a subsidy when the block rewards run out. So paying miners and these notaries rather than really burning. Okay. Maybe better, but still makes messages mostly for the rich? #bitfest #bitcoin #nostr