Searching for gamma: How to show the middle finger to the hierarchy

Sometimes we’re up, sometimes we’re down. Hierarchical structures have winners and losers, as do all elections and other contests. One way not to be a loser is to win. It’s just that the ratio of winners to losers is pretty low – and there has to be a more rational strategy. That may be the […]

Shorting the state – how to benefit from parallel solutions and competition with the state

So, you are a libertarian, you are sure that most statist solutions are a failure. How do you benefit from this belief? Belief without skin in the game can be a good (but more often annoying) topic for discussions over drinks, but you are not going to win friends and influence people. Isn’t it a […]

10 fun things to do to improve your privacy and go on a strike – to a parallel economy

Oh no, another list of “10 things…”. This one started as a set of Twitter/Mastodon posts about things to try to improve your privacy and be conscious of what you are doing. These are not the usual things to do for privacy. In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, people went on strike. The giant holding the […]

Lunarpunk – the future of cryptocurrencies in regulatory hell

When there was a battle of “ideologies” going on around me during high school – the Nazis (yay central Slovakia!), the metalheads and the punks, the hippies and the normies, I was immersed in cyberpunk literature myself (William Gibson, Neal Stephenson) and cypherpunk philosophy. Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that deals with dystopian […]

Become a Bitcoin ❤️-brand: Why accept Bitcoin?

What is the motivation to accept Bitcoin payments in your business and why are many companies and businesses enthusiastic about doing so? If I see an establishment with a Bitcoin sticker on the door while traveling, I often curiously step inside to see what the place is all about. A Visa or American Express sticker […]

Test of Bitcoin lightning wallets

Lightning network enables fast and inexpensive Bitcoin payments. I wrote about how to use it in my book Cryptocurrencies – hack your way to a better life (my e-shop, Amazon). In this article, I want to put all parts of the statement in the first sentence to the test – whether it enables the payments (do […]

The law of cryptocurrency isomorphism

I’m assuming you’ve never heard of the law of cryptocurrency isomorphism, because I just made that name up. But it’s been around for a long time, since the first decentralized exchanges (DEX) appeared. When I was selling my books at an event, I tried to get people to pay me in cryptocurrencies. Mainly because it’s […]

How not to fall for a cryptocurrency scam

It is natural for people to dream of getting rich quickly. Even more so when they see the ‘crypto bros’ around them who have moved to Dubai, drinking coffee with sheikhs, driving a lambo or even buying their own castle. However, trying to replicate other people’s way of getting rich runs into a few practical […]

Fooled by features – why your favourite crypto project is unlikely to succeed, even if it is better

I’ve had several conversations with people about how their favourite cryptocurrency will overtake Bitcoin. And I have often perceived some of the projects’ features as good myself. But before we break down the various arguments and why they are unlikely to lead to success, let’s talk about two technologies that preceded crypto. The first technology […]

Encrypted messengers – comparison

Updated 20. august 2024 In part 1, I explained why encrypted messengers are important. In this part, we will look at particular messengers and compare them. Signal Let’s start with probably the most well-known and widely used secure messenger – Signal. It’s been in development since 2010, but the first version of what we know […]