🟠 Lugano will steal your girlfriend

GM.

It’s Arsen, bringing you the second edition of TLDR - the newletter that keeps you informed AND entertained.

This time there’s 136 of you reading this. Thankful for you all.

As always, I’ll keep it short and sweet. Just like all the best things in life (almost all)

Block time: 775119

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 44 seconds

Here’s what I got for you this week:

• Meet Lugano: The Swiss Bitcoin Mecca

• Bitcoin 🤝 NFT’s...?

• Nostr Is Eating Twitter’s Lunch.

THE CITY WHERE YOU CAN LIVE ON BITCOIN

Bitcoin is a source of lots of joy. For example:

• Great memes

• Juicy drama (looking at you, Luke Dashjr)

• Bitcoin has educated more people about money than any university degree ever could

But when it comes to practical use, it’s still lacking.

The biggest obstacle to bitcoin adoption is that it cannot be used for everyday purchases.

This is the truth. Fight me.

To most merchants, bitcoin is still funny money. Your barber doesn’t want it. Your local grocery store doesn’t want it. The kid next door selling lemonade doesn’t want it.

Hell, even your shady weed dealer doesn’t want it.

Well, it’s different in Lugano.

At first, ‘Lugano’ sounds like a name of an Italian guy who can easily steal your girl.

But no. Lugano is a city in Switzerland where Bitcoin is widely accepted (go, Switzerland!!!)

In August 2022, Lugano announced that it had made bitcoin legal tender.

So, in addition to being known for fondue, rich people, and ‘suicide tourism,’ (yes, you read that right) Switzerland is now also becoming an integral bitcoin hub, with Lugano actively supporting bitcoin businesses and R&D.

Fast forward to today. Here’s what the BTC Map looks like:

And no, that’s not a map of suicide locations I alluded to above…

This is a map of all the businesses that accept bitcoin. Also, you get 10% cashback in LVGA (Lugano’s native stablecoin token).

Even the city’s mayor recently dropped a video where he bought a new book, paid for his morning coffee, and went for a beard trim. All paid with bitcoin.

Now that’s a flex.

And as a cherry on the cake, you can feel our favorite BCH shill Roger Ver die a little bit inside for every coffee purchase made with bitcoin.

What’s happening in Lugano is a sneak peek into a post hyperbitcoinized world (I still cannot pronounce this word).

BITCOIN NFT’s, HELLO

Regardless of how you feel about NFTs, they are coming to Bitcoin.

Some people in the bitcoin ecosystem are happy NFTs are moving to bitcoin. Others claim bitcoin is ‘under attack’.

These Bitcoin NFTs are the product of Ordinals protocol

The sentiment on the topic is somewhat divided.

Generally speaking, there are three camps:

• YAY, NFTS ON BITCOIN!!!1

• “Ordinals? Who cares”

• Ordinals are an attack on bitcoin

This sparked the debate: should jpegs be on bitcoin?

Let’s take a look at the argument on both sides:

Pro Bitcoin NFTs:

• It shows people that bitcoin has more use cases than just being money.

• More use cases will bring more people onto the network.

• Blockchains that have added NFTs have seen the fastest growth.

Anti Bitcoin NFTs:

• Bringing NFTs to Bitcoin will congest the network making it more expensive and slower.

• Adding “unnecessary” things like NFTs sets a precedent that other thing like this can be added too

In other words, the arguments boil down to:More use cases = more people using the network.  

More transactions = more congestion & a slower network

What do you think? Feel free to vote below 👇

wWho will win the debate?

No idea, but we haven’t seen a debate this big since someone tried putting pineapple on pizza.

Some crypto bros have mocked bitcoin maximalists for being closed-minded.

Insert old_man_yelling_at_JPEGS.gif

And yes, I am that old man.

I don’t particularly like people spamming the Bitcoin network with dickbutts.

I also don’t care that much. I believe ordinals will go away as we enter a high-fee environment.

Shoutout to @gregzaj1 for the meme.

Enjoying the memes? Feel free to share with a bitcoiner

NOSTR IS HERE TO STEAL TWITTER’S LUNCH

It looks like there’s a new Twitter alternative on the market.

The new app is called on Damus, and it lives on Nostr, a decentralized network.

The French astrologer Nostradamus predicted lots of events during his lifetime.

But I don’t think laser eyed psychos shitposting on a social network named after him was one of them.

Here’s why half of bitcoin Twitter is talking about it:

• End-to-end private messaging. Twitter is known for having the ability to snoop your DM’s

• Build in Lightning payments ⚡

• No registration is required. No more doxxing your phone number

• Censorship resistant. It’s run on decentralized relays, not servers.

All of this looks very promising. This is why it’s been dubbed the “Twitter killer” (like many before it)

Some prominent figures like Edward Snowden and U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis have already been testing it.

Your boy tried using Nostr.

Spoiler alert: it was wasn’t good.

Currently, Damus is iOS only.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like shorting bitcoin. This is why I don’t use expensive Apple products.

So right now, the UI is clunky for not non-Apple plebs on apps like snort.social.

I’m always skeptical when I hear about “zyx-killer.”

Especially when it comes to a new social platform.

I’m old enough to remember when every bitcoiner and their dog moved to Mastodon…just to come back on Twitter a few weeks later.

Will Nostr be just another Mastodon, or will it get enough traction for the network effect to kick in?

This no one knows. Just like no one knows why British people sound American when they sing.

That’s it for this one.

What’d you think of this weeks’ email?

Let me know in the comment section below or by responding to this email.

See you next Sunday,

Arsen

This week in a meme

Shoutout to @RD_btc for the meme.

Job of the week

Our friends at Swan are looking for a Social Media Manager (read: Chief Meme Officer).

Being a Social Media manger for a bitcoin only company is fun. You get paid for posting memes.

Trust me, I know. I run social media at Relai.

From the archive

Jihan "fuck your mother if you want fuck" Wu.

Absolute legend.

In a bad way, but still.

Shoutouts

Shoutout to, @svmonk, @nikcantmine, my colleagues @raphschoen and @julian_liniger, and others for proving feedback on the first edition of TLDR.

Finally, shoutout to the guy who invented AC. You’re my hero.

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