We sold ~30 books at the Bitcoin Block Party in Vancouver and of those, 90%+ were done with Lightning payments. We had no way of accepting debit card/credit card payments on-site for the bookstore and still managed to basically sell out. A few observations: 1- Bitcoiners love physical goods. Having a book in hand and being able to put it on a bookshelf still gives off a ton of good vibes. The demise of books seems oversold. 2- People did ask for audio versions of books and etc., so it's still critical to reach people looking for information about Bitcoin in the way that they prefer. 3- For those curious, @gladstein's book, Hidden Repression, absolutely killed the game - the bookstore was out of its copies before the first hour was over. 4- Special props to @Jeff Booth who sent two signed copies of The Price of Tomorrow - they're in very good hands! 5- People came up and asked me about the writing process behind my book "Would Mao Hold Bitcoin" and I was able to sell and sign all copies I had on hand. The support from people in the Vancouver community and beyond as well as continuing curiosity, remains amazing. Onwards! Already looking forward to the next edition of the Bitcoin Bookstore, hopefully coming to a city near you.

if you find yourself caring about Bitcoin's short-term price trajectory, remind yourself not to care about Bitcoin's short-term price trajectory

A thought that occurs to me - should journalists encourage the use of one-time nsec/npub pairs to be sources through Nostr? Generally speaking, any way to contact a journalist usually involves email/phone numbers and is an announced channel (meaning intelligence agencies will also be able to find those channels). In China, Signal has had a fake app placed (https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2023/08/30/malicious-signal-app-planted-on-google-play-by-china-linked-cyber-spies/) to trick people and in the past, I remember that some sources went dark because they had to download Signal to communicate with journalists, and the Great Firewall does pick up if you're trying to download Signal, which can be a crime in of itself. I want to hear as many downsides to this as possible, especially on the encryption/privacy front.

I wrote a guide on Nostr, trying to refresh people's knowledge of what you can do with Nostr access with the new apps and new people/content to follow. I also linked a tutorial for getting a zapping wallet set up, and NIP-05 as I've seen the most problems with that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/07/17/your-guide-to-nostr-the-decentralized-network-for-everything/

I wrote about the companies getting onto the Bitcoin standard - accepting Bitcoin, and more and more, paying their employees in Bitcoin, and putting their reserves in Bitcoin while spending fiat as an operating flow. Nostr helped me put together more members of this list! https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/07/16/companies-are-getting-onto-a-bitcoin-standard/ CC: @Start9, @Zaprite, @Leo, @npub1az9x...m8y8, @Coinkite (old npup), @Jameson Lopp @Will Cole and the many Nostr peeps that help put this together.

when somebody pitches me their "quantum-resistant", 47389579834 TPS blockchain token and tells me to read their whitepaper

A lot of people have been wondering about how to get Bitcoin donations to Julian Assange after @Stella Assange wrote about the need to fundraise for the USD 520,000 to cover his flight on VJT199 to Saipan. I talked with his half-brother Gabriel, who set up this link on their @BTCPay Server instance.

Assange Campaign

cc: @npub1sg6p...f63m @gladstein Verify, don't trust as always. All I can say is that I sent sats to this BTCPay instance, and that it came to me from the same Signal account as when I interviewed Gabriel for articles like the following: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/06/21/julian-assanges-continued-imprisonment-is-a-test-for-bitcoins-values/

I wrote about how Bitcoin survived China's bans and actually grew much stronger - diving into the details on the level of what was attempted - really showing how Bitcoin thrived despite a very robust attack from a large state adversary - and what lessons can be drawn for future resilience. Hattip to @`jb55`who gave me the whole story of how Damus had to face down Chinese censors firsthand who took the Damus app down and then banned the default relay IP addresses.

Would Mao hold bitcoin?

How Bitcoin Thrived Through China's Bans And Became Much Stronger - Would Mao hold bitcoin?

How Bitcoin became much stronger after China tried to ban it - and what Bitcoiners can learn from the experience.