Good intro, thanks! I've been running an Umbrel node for about 2 months and it just chugs along, no issues. You're right, it will be difficult to find a Raspberry Pi, tho'.
I'm generally very hopeful for the future of BTC. Two things trouble me--the pressure gov'ts can put on the exchanges and interfere with BTC being freely traded (imagine a gov't telling an exchange they can't do a transaction with anyone sending money to Canadian truckers or exchange that BTC for fiat money, for instance,) and gov't outright banning it. I just always think back to gold being confiscated and banned in the 30's.
I warn Bitcoiners that the 1933 gold confiscation can only happen to coins in exchange wallets. Those coins are also what allows exchanges to offer trading leverage to clients.
I set mine up when we were living in a place that had lots of little 1 second power blips, and my microSD cards were constantly getting corrupted. Thankfully, with more stable power, I've done nothing to my umbrels but run updates for 6 months.
This info is helping me understand a little better. Still very confused about the whole thing, very new for an old dog. One thing that bothers me somewhat is, where does the 'fiat' money go? What happens to it? Whose bank account is it in, and what do they do with it?
Thier's law answers that question. As a currency becomes less and less valuable, people try to get rid of it be spending it or exchanging it for anything. Hyperinflation sets in, and at some point nobody even wants to hold that hot potato, so it's worthless.
Have u seen hidden secrets of money with Mike Maloney? It’s kind of old but the whole series is worth watching. Episode 7 about velocity is 🔥 https://youtu.be/P4_1pwsm5LY
Strike lets you purchase BTC up to $1000/week with no fee. However, not sure if it’s available anywhere else but the States. Definitely not available in South America.
So you don’t directly profit from running a node, but you indirectly profit from it? Is running a node just helpful for the bitcoin community but it’s on you to keep up with the energy bill?
What does running a node teach you? I agree that investing in knowledge is immeasurable. This is perhaps above my tech level, but the way it’s explained, I feel like I can follow directions.
Some of running a simple node is learning that there are different types of nodes that can each perform a different subset of full node functions.
Also, the more people who understand [anything], the more people will be able to help the world along the adoption curve if we hit the high slope S-curve. Along the way, we may see developments of features like zksnarks (compression of information) or see more people run lightning nodes that wind up handling small transactions all over the planet.
Yep. Of course, if you use bitcoin, helping to run the bitcoin network does help you. Also, if you run a lightning node on your umbrel you can earn lightning network transaction fees in bitcoin. Not a lot, but it can help offset some of the hardware and energy bill.
You don't even know. They're all over the place. We have clearly set a world record for solving problems with IKEA spice racks. Once you've used the toilet with an IKEA spice rack, you'll wonder how you lived without it.
This also helped me understand a little better, but the whole thing is still way over my head. I love the idea of Bitcoin, but i wonder—whats to stop the government to all of a sudden declare it dangerous and come in and shut it all down?
Don't worry if this article is about a topic you can't replicate on your own. This the techie level. The people who enjoy building their own computers will enjoy this article.
The beginners mostly just need to learn to download a wallet. There are many steps from there, and it is highly interdisciplinary. Nobody I know handles all aspects of it at an expert level.
I thought they were reasonable questions that laid straight the practical principle. If that feels like bashing, I recommend reflecting on why.
Edit: The comment above seems to have been editing from the original content, so I'll edit my response:
My goal is to educate people. I do so because I believe monetary technology to be among the absolute most important in the world, and that life or death for billions of people hangs in the balance, not to mention quality of life. Do I know how this experiment turns out? No, but I study in order to understand, and I relay parts of my understanding.
Isn't that what people do with any important topic?
On the other hand, your first comment is a direct discouragement of people stepping into a topic in order to learn about it. I suspect there is some sort of technophobia involved, spurred on by a carefully crafted propaganda campaign. Remember that Bitcoin is the decentralized challenger of the most centralized weapon in the history of the world.
I build computers for a living, run many Linux machines but find SSH setup too complicated to understand. If a locksmith had physical access to my lock, I would be worried. Here, everyone on the internet has access to my lock. I don't know how many of them are very good locksmiths, who want my money ...
In the US at least, code (which is all bitcoin is really) is considered speech and protected under the first amendment. More broadly, as a distributed technology, it's difficult to find a single pressure point that would entirely shut down bitcoin without also shutting down the internet. Several countries have "banned" crypto of various stripes, but these bans are always leaky. Currently, one of the biggest pressure points for bitcoin is not related to bitcoin or the bitcoin network per se, but in the interaction between the bitcoin network and the bitcoin exchanges. These centralized markets are the interface between the bitcoin economy and the dollar economy, and the exchanges are absolutely subject to regulation.
I appreciate this. I was intrigued and amazed with your post about mining bitcoins from efficient energy brokering/management. I had NO IDEA about any of this. It's super cool how you schooled your loosely gapped synapses to do truly organic maths.
thanks for this detailed explanation of how to run a node! I'm thinking one day to try to set this up, just to help with the decentralization of the network, even though I'm not even remotely tech savvy.
Hurrah another wife post. Ok so my husband is all in on the Bitcoin now. I told him to buy under $6k but he didn’t. Ha. But now he is always trying to get me to read Bitcoin books and layered money and debt a 5000 year history I probably should but I’m taking care of young kids all day and it’s just not what I’m wanting to do in my spare time right now. It sounds like Swan which is a dollar cost averaging service is good for people who want to save in Bitcoin without worrying about price or transacting
Anyway I understand most of this post. I get the exchanges the wallets the keys etc. but the nodes you lost me. I get what they are and why they are important you are a good clear writer but I would be hopeless at setting my own up I am very impressed with your prowess. Do you have a podcast you’d recommend or a YouTube channel that’s maybe not a total sausage fest sometimes that’s off putting
P.s. I think you all need chickens. Do you need chickens ?
Somewhere on the web I had found an article that used an old Universal Power Supply combined with a car battery which is a much cheaper and effective supply in case of extended power outages. I have several old units, but replacement of the original battery is prohibitively expensive.
Bitcoin seems to be totally dependent upon the internet and electricity. What happens when the internet does go down? I’d like to have a currency that doesn’t depend on the internet and electricity. Infrastructure that provides the internet and electricity is extremely vulnerable. Because it hasn’t happened to any great extent yet, does not mean it can’t or won’t happen.
Bitcoin does not help you in the event that intergalactic space aliens destroy your planet, nor interdimensional reptiles eat you and your children. It's a design flaw.
And duh the answer is “we’ll have far bigger problems gonna get all mad max” so I guess buy Bitcoin but also spam and phyzz gold and silver and lots of ammo
In a world where even the regulators are defrauding us, I have difficulty accepting that we have this fantastic technology that needs no regulation and is magically free of fraud ...
State actors could easily be undermining (pun intended) it. Seems like an elaborate technological pyramid scheme.
The Pentagon/NSA are worried that the world is increasingly dependent on the Linux kernel. They want to study the social engineering aspects of open source development. Which also means they could attempt to gain control of it.
Software is overflowing with bugs. So even without interference, it's a mess.
We cannot believe our media, we cannot believe the regulators of what are supposed to be some of the most advanced nations on earth. Not sure if I should believe a campfire.wiki ...
Good stuff. One of the best write-ups I've seen and plan to forward it to those interested in bitcoin. Thank you for the writing and attention to detail.
My hesitancy has always been technical risk - risk of dependency on internet (undesirables being cut off at protocol level) or losing hash but mostly the risk of encryption being hacked (or bypassed). There is not enough discussion around the vulnerability of platforms as opposed to the encryption algorithms themselves. The enabling software is always a vulnerability and more is at risk with bitcoin.
Another concern is the public transaction details - mining these interactions like social media networks can be used by tyrranical governments or other organizations to identify undesirables and make them kinetic/flesh targets even if not digital targets.
Not to mention fundamental risks of, say, someone owning enough to control the ledger and the anonymity of the first traunch of untransacted bitcoin. Could this be a trojan horse to be used one day by our intel community?
Bitcoin and all other digital currencies are planned to be decommissioned and banned in the great reset. Short and vital inside information on Globalist reset plans. Read or listen to at least parts 1 & 2: https://oculumlabs.com/interview-with-gideon-csrq-sm/
If they can ban it, they can turn off our ability to use most all modern technology. If they have that much power, and are willing to use it, then the game's over, anyhow. But I doubt that.
Good intro, thanks! I've been running an Umbrel node for about 2 months and it just chugs along, no issues. You're right, it will be difficult to find a Raspberry Pi, tho'.
I'm generally very hopeful for the future of BTC. Two things trouble me--the pressure gov'ts can put on the exchanges and interfere with BTC being freely traded (imagine a gov't telling an exchange they can't do a transaction with anyone sending money to Canadian truckers or exchange that BTC for fiat money, for instance,) and gov't outright banning it. I just always think back to gold being confiscated and banned in the 30's.
I warn Bitcoiners that the 1933 gold confiscation can only happen to coins in exchange wallets. Those coins are also what allows exchanges to offer trading leverage to clients.
I set mine up when we were living in a place that had lots of little 1 second power blips, and my microSD cards were constantly getting corrupted. Thankfully, with more stable power, I've done nothing to my umbrels but run updates for 6 months.
This info is helping me understand a little better. Still very confused about the whole thing, very new for an old dog. One thing that bothers me somewhat is, where does the 'fiat' money go? What happens to it? Whose bank account is it in, and what do they do with it?
Thier's law answers that question. As a currency becomes less and less valuable, people try to get rid of it be spending it or exchanging it for anything. Hyperinflation sets in, and at some point nobody even wants to hold that hot potato, so it's worthless.
Frame it and call it a historical relic.
We’re all gonna be trillionaires!!
Have u seen hidden secrets of money with Mike Maloney? It’s kind of old but the whole series is worth watching. Episode 7 about velocity is 🔥 https://youtu.be/P4_1pwsm5LY
Take care Matt, I hope your back feels better soon! 😘
Strike lets you purchase BTC up to $1000/week with no fee. However, not sure if it’s available anywhere else but the States. Definitely not available in South America.
So you don’t directly profit from running a node, but you indirectly profit from it? Is running a node just helpful for the bitcoin community but it’s on you to keep up with the energy bill?
For us, there is an educational value above all else. And as people who have run a few businesses, that's a commerce investment.
What does running a node teach you? I agree that investing in knowledge is immeasurable. This is perhaps above my tech level, but the way it’s explained, I feel like I can follow directions.
Some of running a simple node is learning that there are different types of nodes that can each perform a different subset of full node functions.
Also, the more people who understand [anything], the more people will be able to help the world along the adoption curve if we hit the high slope S-curve. Along the way, we may see developments of features like zksnarks (compression of information) or see more people run lightning nodes that wind up handling small transactions all over the planet.
Yep. Of course, if you use bitcoin, helping to run the bitcoin network does help you. Also, if you run a lightning node on your umbrel you can earn lightning network transaction fees in bitcoin. Not a lot, but it can help offset some of the hardware and energy bill.
It's not a significant energy use, but it is there.
IKEA spice rack. Nice work, McGyver!
You don't even know. They're all over the place. We have clearly set a world record for solving problems with IKEA spice racks. Once you've used the toilet with an IKEA spice rack, you'll wonder how you lived without it.
This also helped me understand a little better, but the whole thing is still way over my head. I love the idea of Bitcoin, but i wonder—whats to stop the government to all of a sudden declare it dangerous and come in and shut it all down?
Don't worry if this article is about a topic you can't replicate on your own. This the techie level. The people who enjoy building their own computers will enjoy this article.
The beginners mostly just need to learn to download a wallet. There are many steps from there, and it is highly interdisciplinary. Nobody I know handles all aspects of it at an expert level.
Never get involved with something u don’t understand
So, you can answer all questions about how your car runs, how the internet is structured, and how the cracking of carbon chains takes place?
Should nobody use encrypted email until they advanced through graduate level number theory?
I would question why you’re so keen on pushing Bitcoin to people.
Are you interpreting my questions as bashing you?
I thought they were reasonable questions that laid straight the practical principle. If that feels like bashing, I recommend reflecting on why.
Edit: The comment above seems to have been editing from the original content, so I'll edit my response:
My goal is to educate people. I do so because I believe monetary technology to be among the absolute most important in the world, and that life or death for billions of people hangs in the balance, not to mention quality of life. Do I know how this experiment turns out? No, but I study in order to understand, and I relay parts of my understanding.
Isn't that what people do with any important topic?
On the other hand, your first comment is a direct discouragement of people stepping into a topic in order to learn about it. I suspect there is some sort of technophobia involved, spurred on by a carefully crafted propaganda campaign. Remember that Bitcoin is the decentralized challenger of the most centralized weapon in the history of the world.
Do you have a clientele of subscribers who you help to invest in Bitcoin?
I build computers for a living, run many Linux machines but find SSH setup too complicated to understand. If a locksmith had physical access to my lock, I would be worried. Here, everyone on the internet has access to my lock. I don't know how many of them are very good locksmiths, who want my money ...
In the US at least, code (which is all bitcoin is really) is considered speech and protected under the first amendment. More broadly, as a distributed technology, it's difficult to find a single pressure point that would entirely shut down bitcoin without also shutting down the internet. Several countries have "banned" crypto of various stripes, but these bans are always leaky. Currently, one of the biggest pressure points for bitcoin is not related to bitcoin or the bitcoin network per se, but in the interaction between the bitcoin network and the bitcoin exchanges. These centralized markets are the interface between the bitcoin economy and the dollar economy, and the exchanges are absolutely subject to regulation.
I appreciate this. I was intrigued and amazed with your post about mining bitcoins from efficient energy brokering/management. I had NO IDEA about any of this. It's super cool how you schooled your loosely gapped synapses to do truly organic maths.
Potatopotatopotatopotatopotato
Ack!
potato!
thanks for this detailed explanation of how to run a node! I'm thinking one day to try to set this up, just to help with the decentralization of the network, even though I'm not even remotely tech savvy.
Hurrah another wife post. Ok so my husband is all in on the Bitcoin now. I told him to buy under $6k but he didn’t. Ha. But now he is always trying to get me to read Bitcoin books and layered money and debt a 5000 year history I probably should but I’m taking care of young kids all day and it’s just not what I’m wanting to do in my spare time right now. It sounds like Swan which is a dollar cost averaging service is good for people who want to save in Bitcoin without worrying about price or transacting
Anyway I understand most of this post. I get the exchanges the wallets the keys etc. but the nodes you lost me. I get what they are and why they are important you are a good clear writer but I would be hopeless at setting my own up I am very impressed with your prowess. Do you have a podcast you’d recommend or a YouTube channel that’s maybe not a total sausage fest sometimes that’s off putting
P.s. I think you all need chickens. Do you need chickens ?
I don't know what Podcasters walk through tech well, unfortunately.
A really good idea is a backup power supply.
Somewhere on the web I had found an article that used an old Universal Power Supply combined with a car battery which is a much cheaper and effective supply in case of extended power outages. I have several old units, but replacement of the original battery is prohibitively expensive.
We use a sine wave to protect this and other equipment.
Bitcoin seems to be totally dependent upon the internet and electricity. What happens when the internet does go down? I’d like to have a currency that doesn’t depend on the internet and electricity. Infrastructure that provides the internet and electricity is extremely vulnerable. Because it hasn’t happened to any great extent yet, does not mean it can’t or won’t happen.
Bitcoin does not help you in the event that intergalactic space aliens destroy your planet, nor interdimensional reptiles eat you and your children. It's a design flaw.
This is my top concern. How does Bitcoin fare in the event of an emp.
same as your bank. without power, your money is gone.
Currency https://goldsilver.com/hidden-secrets/episode-1/
And duh the answer is “we’ll have far bigger problems gonna get all mad max” so I guess buy Bitcoin but also spam and phyzz gold and silver and lots of ammo
In a world where even the regulators are defrauding us, I have difficulty accepting that we have this fantastic technology that needs no regulation and is magically free of fraud ...
State actors could easily be undermining (pun intended) it. Seems like an elaborate technological pyramid scheme.
"I have difficulty accepting that we have this fantastic technology that needs no regulation"
It is regulated in many ways. But if you don't know that, I recommend reading through the basic educational content:
https://www.campfire.wiki/doku.php?id=bitcoin:bitcoin_education_guide
I would also discourage forming strong opinions on topics before going through the basic education.
The Pentagon/NSA are worried that the world is increasingly dependent on the Linux kernel. They want to study the social engineering aspects of open source development. Which also means they could attempt to gain control of it.
Software is overflowing with bugs. So even without interference, it's a mess.
We cannot believe our media, we cannot believe the regulators of what are supposed to be some of the most advanced nations on earth. Not sure if I should believe a campfire.wiki ...
Good stuff. One of the best write-ups I've seen and plan to forward it to those interested in bitcoin. Thank you for the writing and attention to detail.
My hesitancy has always been technical risk - risk of dependency on internet (undesirables being cut off at protocol level) or losing hash but mostly the risk of encryption being hacked (or bypassed). There is not enough discussion around the vulnerability of platforms as opposed to the encryption algorithms themselves. The enabling software is always a vulnerability and more is at risk with bitcoin.
Another concern is the public transaction details - mining these interactions like social media networks can be used by tyrranical governments or other organizations to identify undesirables and make them kinetic/flesh targets even if not digital targets.
Not to mention fundamental risks of, say, someone owning enough to control the ledger and the anonymity of the first traunch of untransacted bitcoin. Could this be a trojan horse to be used one day by our intel community?
Bitcoin and all other digital currencies are planned to be decommissioned and banned in the great reset. Short and vital inside information on Globalist reset plans. Read or listen to at least parts 1 & 2: https://oculumlabs.com/interview-with-gideon-csrq-sm/
If they can ban it, they can turn off our ability to use most all modern technology. If they have that much power, and are willing to use it, then the game's over, anyhow. But I doubt that.