Jestopher

Co-founder of Amboss Technologies, Inc.
"Never before has greed tempted me to live a very simple life."
Mostly #memes & #lightningnetwork thoughts
https://amboss.tech

Public Key

npub18yvpnchj7yaepjk8yz2pn66hfmmup505aqvx0lpyc3aree0g5fyq8clpz3

NIP-05 Address

Jestopher@Amboss.space

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsrjxqeute0zwusetrjp9qeadt5aa7q686wsxr8lsjvg73uuh52yjqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumtfd3hh2tnvdakqzrthwden5te009skyafwd4jszxrhwvaz7te38y6zuvfex5hryv3j9c6rww358q6rsqg7waen5te0xsengvrdv95kutnyw43kkerwwvhx7un88g6rsdpcqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hszrnhwvaz7tmp9ehx7uewd3hkczpf6tt

Publishing to

relay.milou.lol

yabu.me

194.195.222.47:4848

4340main.duckdns.org:4848

relay.damus.io

a.nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub18yvpnchj7yaepjk8yz2pn66hfmmup505aqvx0lpyc3aree0g5fyq8clpz3

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Last Notes

2026-10-12 19:26:19 UTC

Agentic payments are here
#nevent1q…mpp8

2026-09-25 00:30:01 UTC

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Awesome!!

2026-09-25 00:22:15 UTC

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Taproot assets on Bitcoin can't be frozen; that would require that a Bitcoin transaction be freezable.
Stablecoins aren't good long term since they carry issuer risk on top of the debasement risk.
My argument is that we should use the stablecoin fervor to expand Bitcoin acceptance through Bitcoin-native stablecoins.

2026-09-24 23:49:03 UTC

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Gorgeous

2026-09-24 23:47:01 UTC

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That's not a taproot asset, but basically, yes.

2026-09-24 22:34:14 UTC

Why stablecoins belong on Bitcoin:
If all fiat currencies are falling against bitcoin, the store of value becomes bitcoin.
If people stop accepting fiat currencies, the stablecoins also won't be accepted, only Bitcoin will.
Therefore, Stablecoins at best are transition currencies to flip the medium of exchange to Bitcoin. Not SOL, ETH, or TRON... Those aren't treasury-grade assets; they're speculative.
Anything other than Bitcoin as a MoE is a distraction.

2026-09-16 23:53:31 UTC

https://npub18yvpnchj7yaepjk8yz2pn66hfmmup505aqvx0lpyc3aree0g5fyq8clpz3.blossom.band/27d6000998e02067a4dba72b0e18b04ea25f3081a1403835ea8c3e5af522d31c.png
A Thoughtful Pause on Settlement
We Must Pace Lightning
I have worked on Bitcoin payments for years because I believe they could dramatically raise the quality of human life. Instant, self-custodial value transfer could shrink remittance corridors, take chargebacks off the table for merchants, and let AI agents pay each other without a custodian in the middle. I have written often about these benefits. A world of abundance and empowerment is possible.
But like many technologies before it, Lightning brings risks, and because it is such a powerful rail, these risks are serious. A payment that finalizes before you have finished your sentence can outrun our ability to feel the transaction. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives to shave another 200 milliseconds, can make these risks more acute.
Over the last few months I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence—not just investing in better watchtowers and channel management, but pacing the rate of settlement advancement so that human comprehension has time to keep up.
We must slow the pace at which Lightning payments reach finality. Progress will still seem fast. We must make wise use of the time we gain.
Two things have convinced me.
First, since roughly this summer, Lightning has been advancing drastically faster. Sub-second invoices, multi-hop onion-routed paths, and Taproot Assets moving stablecoins without a bridge have produced a dynamic I can only describe as recursive liquidity improvement: liquidity finding more liquidity, routes finding better routes, nodes helping stand up the next generation of nodes. Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to hold a thoughtful pause before money moves.
Second, there have already been incidents. A swarm of agents paying each other for inference, a merchant who received sats before they had time to say “thank you,” a coffee that settled while the barista was still writing the name on the cup. The damage so far has been limited. My worry is that in 6–12 months such a swarm could be capable of settling the entire internet’s micropayments with a persistent graph of channels—potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in convenience, with no time left for ritual, paperwork, or a compliance officer to clear their throat.
I am therefore proposing a three-step plan with the goal of pacing the mempool: building Lightning at a balanced rate that aims to ensure its safety while still achieving its benefits.
To be clear, pacing does not mean halting channel opens or technical progress. It means ensuring operators take adequate time to align and safeguard their nodes, and for third-party evaluators to confirm this.
1. Embedded Evaluators
Each frontier Lightning company commits to giving ongoing, employee-like access to a team of embedded third-party evaluators whose role is to verify adherence to safety practices, report incidents of uncomfortably fast settlement, and assess the alignment of not just completed payments but routing pipelines and fee policies.
This is the key step for verifiability. It has precedent in the banking industry, which sometimes involves supervisors sitting next to traders so that ACH can continue to take 1–3 business days in peace.
Amboss is unilaterally committing to the opposite of this step. We will not embed evaluators whose job is to make payments slower. We will keep building rails that settle when the preimage arrives—because that is what the protocol does, and because users who want self-custody, low fees, and no chargebacks do not need a cooling-off period designed for wire transfers.
We will give operators tools: liquidity marketplaces, routing insight, and a payments API that lets iGaming, agents, and merchants accept Lightning without giving up keys. If you want a third party watching your node, that is a product choice. It should not be a speed limit on the base layer.
2. Democratic Coordination
Frontier Lightning companies within democratic countries should coordinate to establish common safety standards as well as limits on the rate of unchecked finality.
Some forms of coordination are legally challenging. Governments may need to grant antitrust waivers so that everyone can agree that a coffee should take at least as long as a committee meeting. I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before payments reach critical levels of convenience, and we used that time to advance “alignment” (forms, hold periods, correspondent banks), we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously efficient.
Alternatively, we could notice that Bitcoin already settled the coordination problem in 2009, Lightning extended it without a new trusted party, and the remaining work is operational excellence—not a new intergovernmental pace committee.
3. Global Coordination
The hardest step: getting every jurisdiction to accept that value should move slower than gossip.
A graded agreement might start with banning clearly dangerous uses (paying someone you have never met), proceed to mandatory waiting periods before invoices can be paid, and culminate in a speed limit on onion routing so that privacy does not outrun the ability of a supervisor to request a screenshot.
I recognize this may be difficult. Authoritarian states and open-source node runners have historically been uncooperative when asked to make money worse.
The measures required to advance Lightning at a “safe” pace will not be easy. They will also not be necessary.
Lightning already gives you what the doomer essay is afraid of: finality measured in seconds, privacy by default, and cost so low that an AI agent can pay for a single inference without opening a bank account. The risk is not that settlement is too fast. The risk is that we talk ourselves into rebuilding the correspondent-banking stack on top of a protocol that was designed to make that stack optional.
If you want payments that move at the speed of the network—and a team that treats that as a feature—use Lightning. If you want it packaged for merchants, agents, and operators who still have to live in the real world of liquidity and compliance, that is what we are building at Amboss Payments.
We owe it to humanity to let the invoice settle.

2026-09-16 21:39:19 UTC

We Must Pace Lightning: I’ve written a new essay on why Lightning payments should settle more slowly, with a three-part plan for doing so.
Lightning development has reached new levels of settlement speeds that exceeds human capabilities, with sub-second finality and onion routing.

2026-09-16 03:20:46 UTC

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😂😂🤣

2026-09-16 00:24:00 UTC

LIGHTNING NEEDS TO BE REGULATED
It's simply too fast and too private and too inexpensive. If we continue down this path, AI systems could replace card networks with machine to machine payments. Without any scaling limits, I grow increasingly concerned it could kill card payments.

2026-09-10 23:01:06 UTC

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Don't yuck my yum

2026-09-06 01:38:35 UTC

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Incredible series. That finale was killer.

2026-09-03 00:12:21 UTC

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This is what I was fired up about today ⚡ 💸
#nevent1q…y4ud

2026-09-03 00:10:21 UTC

Spinning up a new $USDT edge node if anyone wants to profit from the new stablecoin customers we're getting on lightning via @nprofile…eph5
This node allows businesses to accept lightning payments and receive them as USDT.
https://amboss.space/node/03e350e8ee70ca3947ab4c59bb435db834079f335b65b4ddadcb7bec60b4c63be8

2026-09-02 20:46:06 UTC

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Okay

2026-08-21 20:59:51 UTC

Cashtags are a huge improvement on Lightning's reach outside of the Bitcoin community
#nevent1q…9sqv

2026-08-18 22:09:09 UTC

Explain it to me like someone who doesn't roll dice
#nevent1q…c7wr

2026-08-14 19:15:18 UTC

This is my favorite way to learn things now
#nevent1q…max6

2026-07-20 22:12:47 UTC

Why do you choose to pay with Bitcoin when given the option?

2026-05-23 22:29:35 UTC

Between the users of Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Cash App, and more, there are approximately 900M users with the ability to pay a lightning invoice.
Lightning has won.

2026-05-08 18:47:00 UTC

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Sounds too good to be true

2026-04-24 20:16:09 UTC

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TBH he's my least favorite scientist; I don't understand why he's so adored.
Meanwhile these guys put out bangers regularly
https://youtu.be/a2aWO5cL410?si=Pd0DhjHUuGXs8lPO

2026-04-24 12:20:55 UTC

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They recently found universes that were too developed for how far they were away, depending on the direction. The result is a crisis in some of their assumptions about the expansion of the universe and more.

2026-04-24 11:38:32 UTC

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Volatility hedge?

2026-04-24 00:05:44 UTC

Lightning is the only true DeFi.
#nevent1q…txjw

2026-04-08 11:18:03 UTC

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You just narrowly escaped death. I think you can allow yourself some grace. I'm immensely grateful you're still with us.
Thanks for fighting, Carla and team.

2026-04-06 12:23:53 UTC

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Rules try to control what others do.
Boundaries protect what you do.
One demands obedience.
The other owns your own limits.

2026-03-13 04:15:39 UTC

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@nprofile…eph5

2026-03-04 23:49:26 UTC

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Thanks for having me Keith!!

2026-02-27 12:47:06 UTC

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You should check out the channel recommender "Magma AI" on amboss.space to identify some more helpful routes.
The two nodes you're connecting are already established and well-connected so I doubt you'd ever see much traffic there.

2026-02-25 20:57:19 UTC

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Love Takis...delicious

2026-02-21 17:58:27 UTC

The Lightning Network is criminally underappreciated.
It's already got:
Privacy
Scalability
Speed
Cost
Adoption
Imagine comparing it to theoretical upgrades to other cryptos when Lightning already exists on the most robust and reliable Blockchain ever—Bitcoin.

2026-02-20 02:16:46 UTC

#nevent1q…rpjm

2026-02-19 11:25:24 UTC

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Plz no

2026-02-17 15:38:28 UTC

Protect customers by preventing phishing
#nevent1q…3gdx

2026-02-08 01:58:19 UTC

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If you did your best, I'm proud of you.

2026-02-08 01:39:04 UTC

Wow.
I'm blown away by the response and we've received more signups than I had projected for the entire year. 🤯
By taking advantage of Lightning's HTLCs and Taproot Assets, we can make P2P exchange possible in complete self-custody. ⚡
#nevent1q…504z

2026-01-30 20:23:21 UTC

Self-custody, P2P trading over the lightning network
#nevent1q…504z

2026-01-24 15:01:40 UTC

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👏👏👏

2026-01-24 14:58:40 UTC

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Feed it a bunch of your content and ask it what you should be paying more attention to

2026-01-14 21:38:08 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/30f3e4a1c599974965d9fe31f628aee8fd1033b3b5eead9efd86efe0a74bcc73.png
#memes #funny

2026-01-01 07:04:10 UTC

Something I learned this year about writing is that people only want the conclusion.
I definitely didn't learn this in college (I studied env. engineering). It was a shock to learn that people don't want to read about data or about your process to arrive at the conclusion; they only want the takeaway.
Consequently, for honest, analytical people, you have to write the full analysis and then move the conclusion to the front. Then, the analysis becomes supporting material that leads credibility to your conclusions. This thread about Lightning should be a great example of this in action: conclusion, then supporting analysis.
#nevent1q…7zs8

2026-01-01 06:10:55 UTC

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💜💜 ⚡

2026-01-01 05:33:15 UTC

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You can tip me if you want!

2025-12-30 22:50:31 UTC

Lightning had a huge year in 2025 and the data shows it's healthier than ever.
If Bitcoin is to become the global medium of exchange, Lightning is the essential ingredient for decentralized scaling.
#nevent1q…ejat

2025-12-29 19:42:32 UTC

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I've encountered the concern before and it applies to onchain activity. Lightning transactions would be largely unaffected by the mining game theory at play in MEV.
Using Bitcoin for this purpose can't be stopped in the same way as arbitrary data storage. Consequently, we should embrace reality that Bitcoin is a neutral value transfer system.

2025-12-29 16:18:01 UTC

Current status of Magma providing liquidity to hungry lightning nodes
https://giphy.com/gifs/smh-cute-s-smart-animals-8YQxJgklqocDu

2025-12-27 22:40:23 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/d003d7b82ac5c7bd693f640eb8061cd480ba13ac042d2dd24ec8e50025347199.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-12-20 18:41:34 UTC

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Approved 2/3

2025-12-19 05:10:47 UTC

Stop procrastinating https://image.nostr.build/1c8f0451c7d4c4cdc0f5291c16c176c1f572466ae4666319ee462ced88c74835.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-12-12 00:02:58 UTC

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It's not likely in the near term. The only exception would be if you're bringing significant payment volume.
Otherwise, there's a 3000 BTC waitlist and performance is highly related to the amount of assets deployed from what we're seeing in early phases.

2025-12-11 22:55:43 UTC

2026 will be massive for bitcoin and @nprofile…eph5 will be at the epicenter of its proliferation as a medium of exchange on lightning.
I am so excited to bring the culmination of innovations and products to life next year. Massive year ahead.

2025-12-11 00:30:18 UTC

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https://magma.amboss.tech

2025-12-11 00:29:28 UTC

While liquidity remains tight at the Fed, we've made liquidity very "accommodative" on the lightning network with @nprofile…eph5 Magma.
This brings our payment processing target rate to 0.2% which supports real economic growth with efficient payments within the Bitcoin sector.
https://image.nostr.build/9b0b24dc3d8e1fababb9cd12a1bca836922fb9d4bcf83ee22d027b771b470eba.jpg

2025-12-09 06:22:31 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/1aa52d38d6253009cf48f8dd8b2c80eb4e350ba8358d2af73f2854fedb9fa422.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-12-09 00:56:39 UTC

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👑

2025-11-30 22:00:37 UTC

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Oh my you're available?? 👀
We're not hiring at the moment, but I would expect to hire in 2026.

2025-11-27 01:25:50 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/1efd0fa34ab6a181c70456157c3834d25017e8331d6a97afcc6a72f221db1413.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-11-26 19:03:28 UTC

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I bet you wrote that note 5 weeks ago

2025-11-26 18:53:49 UTC

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Bancolibre.com

2025-11-26 01:51:31 UTC

Metrics at @nprofile…eph5 have been up and to the right this year with yields stabilizing (green), liquidity cost falling (red), and liquidity market volume growing (blue).
These metrics are great for Amboss, Bitcoin, and Decentralization.
https://image.nostr.build/69e07b1693907407a3c8a3d9866fd9c96d1dcf583c6ee5a33eeb8e338487b8de.png
#lightningnetwork

2025-11-25 01:46:48 UTC

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I think you should close those channels then and connect to our Rails cluster for better reachability.
It worked out great for Bitcoin Amsterdam.
https://amboss.tech/rails/stats

2025-11-24 23:51:43 UTC

I'm blown away.
Lightning is insanely efficient.
I just watched someone get $7,118 of liquidity for $10.
That's a total payment processing cost of 0.14%.
>20x cheaper than VISA. No chargebacks. Instant.
No liquidity management required if you buy channels.
https://magma.amboss.tech

2025-11-22 00:26:25 UTC

Send me your ramen tips please 😅

2025-11-19 00:20:50 UTC

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https://image.nostr.build/b40ddb7a225bb204e21cb22f1649fdb7998131fac71ac75805ff2b28786dfccd.png

2025-11-19 00:20:17 UTC

I was told LNMarkets needs some extra liquidity for their exchange. Here's an invoice to gift them ~7M sats of inbound.
lnbc162150n1p536rqkpp536uvurjracvntl8hnmu2ag6vh3nce39gf4lm69dx6u5mdp93ya0sdr02pskjepqw3hjqstdvfhhxueq2d6x7un9yq5y7unyv4ezqj2y8gsrvepnvymnge3n95ekxcfn956r2dmy95ukgv3h94jxyepe89snsetz8yekz2gcqzzsxqrrs0sp55e3ddvdk8zggp6fhwwtylsdxqsy9pc4ax22xhyx54faxfhf9cnlq9qxpqysgqr24v2w0er5504u6a4pfzczz9fc25zvllgjp223g022lttzuuqkjrsxpje2m8mrprwrefl9g584dyw2kvrae4yp2e4h4nmlw926alq5sq08d3c2 https://image.nostr.build/6134798a357e4fbb364fe6c45762f8bd1e525259314be9fde789e9f3f8a292cc.png
#lightningnetwork

2025-11-18 22:54:38 UTC

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Cheers and happy nodiversary!
Gifting you a girthy channel to celebrate 🎇🥂

2025-11-18 03:04:39 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/775e2a1ada752e1c3c9e9e3c0e6cadfc5a8b491ecd593a89f5a739fa12e79e86.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-11-15 11:20:26 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/d402cd691ef130ae0de9eab5a9a1347ded238ef32b41650d38d226d67075fc71.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-11-13 07:24:02 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/e713363c9fec67e9ebb57e9aaeaab5caf974cd9c872af4be88bf2dbe108fbcd2.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-11-13 03:51:17 UTC

He was such an optimist
https://image.nostr.build/d1b8aa2ae3f5156d6bd5f86707d6e93457d919e222d307459ad6de25e067671a.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-11-13 03:47:45 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/28f245d2059e316322dcd864dc49d62667b6405e133051a1b07820080bac482b.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-11-13 03:46:06 UTC

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Inspiring me to post more... Apologies I got busy

2025-11-11 02:04:41 UTC

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2025-11-10 10:48:27 UTC

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I'd be surprised if each one had its own node instead of using Block's gateway node.

2025-11-09 22:15:47 UTC

The total lightning node count trend did a sharp reversal in July.
Obviously the tech has always been strong, but what changed in July?
https://image.nostr.build/7b3a8b4f950d35b5ddb784d439f9fd68381133e729af489b09beaf584b7b354f.png
h/t @nprofile…eph5 #lightning

2025-11-09 21:35:39 UTC

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Touché!

2025-11-09 20:08:10 UTC

It's pretty unfortunate that we collectively give so much attention to people that cause controversy instead of to those that move forward consensus.

2025-11-08 17:19:17 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/bfa6032468d3e92202e893e480d1e8348a67b9c0489b4eb9916a6dd5eefd69ee.jpg #memes #funny

2025-11-05 13:58:40 UTC

Intelligence for Rails @nprofile…eph5 has been updated which improves upon channel closing logic.
Selecting which channels to close is a surprisingly challenging problem since it must value the opportunity cost of liquidity deployed in channels.
Since liquidity leases are so much higher yielding than typical routing events but far more infrequent, the opportunity cost valuation is very complex.
In order to fulfill a lease quickly, Bitcoin needs to be immediately available, which means that Bitcoin must be onchain.
As a result of the increased intelligence (and fresh data feeds to Rails) we can cycle Bitcoin more quickly, allowing faster discovery of new routing opportunities on the network.
Deployed capacity of our Rails cluster in the near term has sharply dropped following the upgrade, which gives us the opportunity to redeploy in more strategic zones.

2025-11-04 13:58:26 UTC

https://open.spotify.com/track/32ssNweOtmacNBEC2kHzA8?si=zBuiqiUuQfG7pRyK20Tqcg
#tunestr

2025-10-30 19:24:31 UTC

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👀
https://image.nostr.build/e7d86f2b7a49ed14827c544e811127da5996250d1515d10297b2ebbcb2ad0ab6.jpg

2025-10-30 14:00:23 UTC

Pura Vida

2025-10-27 12:06:45 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/88a40a278a4bf4e82159cfd2a5b7ec158f6ad57758dd15e49b0e32291470c653.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-10-27 11:30:50 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/76c93b85542350b3d6076fd390e4c7720e721de4fbc556c7aadbc1772aa41685.jpg
#funny

2025-10-23 05:46:53 UTC

Received our first credit card dispute... How is this still the dominant payment system?!

2025-10-23 00:52:26 UTC

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The globe is transitioning

2025-10-22 20:20:16 UTC

If you've been debanked, how do you get paid? How do you cash a check?

2025-10-22 20:17:49 UTC

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I'll be here until Nov 9 for Bitcoin Amsterdam.
Well hopefully get a Uvita trip planned during that time!

2025-10-22 12:51:00 UTC

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Yeah I'm around Alajuela

2025-10-22 06:35:59 UTC

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Nothing broken, but one of our party was asleep at the time... Not any more!
It was invigorating and the scariest part was that we're so close to an active volcano. That would have terrified me to have rocks falling from the sky.

2025-10-22 06:21:14 UTC

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Thank you for your comforting words

2025-10-22 04:23:32 UTC

Just experienced a 5.8 earthquake!
Wow the earth is powerful!
The energy released is equivalent to roughly half of an atomic bomb.
https://image.nostr.build/97f8ffdcfc9dab2a4f5e89151cb9a48031c05e5bf1b8b7ba1a023074b066542e.jpg

2025-10-21 14:26:02 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/f05cc029cf6adee34521788cf018e23b33fc3b8017711d0a551d0a315cc5e80b.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-10-21 13:51:25 UTC

https://image.nostr.build/ea035b29db853a65d78fe6da9634c0d854bdb2ff6d13522779184d44b286de80.jpg
#memes #funny

2025-10-20 18:57:06 UTC

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Oooh this is one of those rare situations where both "effect" and "affect" work!

2025-10-19 00:30:52 UTC

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Awesome!
Better buy nostrdome too

2025-10-18 23:26:34 UTC

Imagine having to keep what you're working on completely secret because the world isn't ready yet.

2025-10-18 23:11:38 UTC

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🤣😂

2025-10-18 11:54:53 UTC

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That's not a thing