Beautyon

Now you can buy bitcoin privately in Proton Wallet, thanks to a new integration with one of the greatest privacy companies in the history of the internetz. People who are for privacy, for bitcoin, and who want to see a future where people are more free don't just talk about it, they do something about it, and that's what Azteco and Proton do. Proton has been offering private email since 2014, and they've been very effective at it. They have 100,000,000 users. And that is a lot of users. Their Proton Wallet is 100% software, and so it can scale dramatically, like WhatsApp and other software only tools have scaled. You do the math. Their wallet is fantastically beautiful, consumer friendly and available world-wide, out of the box. They have everything right. Proton is a very important integration for Azteco, partly because we're fans of that great company, and hold them up as one of the greatest examples of how to serve users. They're one of the very best. That's a fact. Now that the dream of Azteco and Proton is a reality, great potential is unlocked in a way that only true disruptors can unlock great potential. FULL THROTTLE, FOR GREAT JUSTICE.

“Important: Google is locking down Android. Starting Sept 2026, every app — even outside the Play Store — must come from a verified developer. No more anonymous sideloads. No quick comebacks for malware gangs. First up: Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand.” And no indefinite access for illegal and anonymous messaging apps, especially ones with the scary hacker chic graphic design. Protocols have no utility without apps to leverage them. You can bury your head in the sand all you want; the facts remain the same. You can’t have a global scale permissionless ecosystem without the explicit permission of Apple and Google. And if your aim is to change the world, you need global scale adoption to do it. That means unfettered access to be able to have your tools installed on the phones of anyone who wants that tool. This is true also of bitcoin. Bitcoin can’t change the world unless easy access to it is made available to billions of users. Running away from this fact doesn’t make it go away; this fact must be confronted head on and the problem solved. The only question is this: are you contributing to the solution of the problem or not? Or are you acting as a safety valve giving encouragement to people who don’t really understand the problem, so that they feel good today and divert their energy to something which cannot possibly win in the end and, leave us in a better world.

The Hacker News

Google to Verify All Android Developers in 4 Countries to Block Malicious Apps

Google will verify all Android developers by September 2026 in select countries to curb malicious apps.

The Durov case and many other reasons are why companies avoid basing themselves in France. No Social Media platform will seek to headquarter in Paris. It’s unthinkable. And the French government can’t go after Andrew Torba who runs GAB because he’s an American operating GAB in America. If GAB launches end to end encrypted chat or anything the Z French government doesn’t like, there’s nothing they can do about it. The solution to “government overreach” is not building systems that can’t be cracked or stopped; they’re persecuting Durov without any proper cause. If your name is associated with a tool that the French government can’t stop or crack or track, they will come after you. This isn’t about right and wrong, following rules or logic. This is not about technical capabilities or clever architecture, “frenz”; this is about computer illiterate tyrants who can’t understand detail or scale or ethics, and if they can, don’t care, because they want to sacrifice Durov to scare everyone. The next iteration in this is to criminalise the authoring and distribution of unlicensed privacy software. The first part, distribution, will stop ordinary people from accessing Telegram or any tool that keeps messages private. This is easily done through Google Play and the Apple App Store. The second will totally dry up the developer pool of people working on privacy software, because none of them want any trouble. Oh, and GitHub will ban your repo, frenz. Before you write “Hello World” in your new tool, you will need to have a Developer’s License before starting work, even in the conceptual stage. It will be illegal for you to share any design, algorithm or outline without both you and the idea recipient having a current Crypto Software Development License. If you think this is completely impossible, please see Bernstein v. US Department of Justice https://medium.com/swlh/why-america-cant-regulate-bitcoin-8c77cee8d794 The answer to this is not “build your way out of it”, obviously. The answer is to first curb the power of the state to persecute software development and distribution before you write “Hello World”. You do that by making the State smaller. You make the state smaller by instantiating sound money. That means globalising Bitcoin. And how do you “globalise Bitcoin?” 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1….. And in case you didn’t know, rote recitation of catchphrases and infantile feel good gibberish will not stop the persecution of Durov, remove KYC in Bitcoin or stop the emergence of Crypto Developer Licensing.

X (formerly Twitter)

Pavel Durov (@durov) on X

One year ago, the French police detained me for 4 days because some people I’d never heard of used Telegram to coordinate crimes. Arresting a CEO...