The First Nostr Native Bitcoin Meetup
I signed up for the Orange Pill app and found a few Bitcoiners near me. I hit a few up and it's cool to chat online, but it feels wierd. As someone who spends more time explaining bitcoin to fiat maxis than I'd like to admit, what gives? I chat with a few people and they seemed cool. They're bitcoiners! They do interesting stuff like give the bitcoin standard to members of congress and mine bitcoin, but it feels strange.
I'm sorry Orange Pill App. It's not you, it's me.
The Orange Pill App was first marketed as an e-harmony for Bitcoiners. If I was a single sat stacker, I'd love to serenade a single lady with my rendition of the BTC sea shanties, but I am in a different stage of life. I'm happily married, with children. I even have a grandchild.
Back in the day, I perused plenty of fish on the regular. I met about half a dozen women on the OG social media website Myspace. Myspace made you code your page. I learned the basics if HTML by creating a Myspace account and "copy pasta'd" CSS to make an amazing Myspace profile. Myspace was the best dating app ever for a good looking nerd like me.
I understand many single bitcoiners want to meet other single bitcoiners to stack sats and make bitcoiner babies, but the orange pill app is full of dudes . If you're a single bitlady, you'll have no problem finding a bitdude, but if you're a guy, expect a steep dating difficulty adjustment.
The Orange Pill App Is Awesome For Meetups
At this point, the orange-pill app is a sausage fest, but it has a few good things going for it. Don't worry, you'll all get girlfriends after a few halfinings. Here's why I still like The Orange Pill App.
They encourage you to post an npub.
Bitcoiners can add events
Or discover Events
Although you're unlikely to find **hodling hotties, **you might meet make a friend or two. I find starting a meetup is easier because I feel weird inviting another man for coffee. It just feels like I'm asking a guy on a date gay. If that's your thing--I support you. Please start a bitcoin gay bar meetup. Bitcoin is for everybody. I just feel awkward asking dudes out for coffee.
The Riverside Bitcoin Meetup sends a different message. It's a nym like Blogging Bitcoin, but I won;t go around introducing myself as Riverside Bitcoin Meetup. It's more of a nym like Target. You recognize the red bullseye, but you know there's not somebody named Tim Target or something. It's a corporation. What is a corporation, but a government sanctioned nym? The Riverside Bitcoin Meetup is like that, but permissionless. It does not have any stocks, nor issue any bonds. It uses public key cryptography like this:
npub1rvrsde6r0w7unk3am48md5us4gsx536dq5qh6utedkhhemq3hxesehc89n
But it **issues no CrYpToCuRrEnCy and will not have an ICO. **
There are no tokens, just to be clear, but I did create a lightning address.
Why Does This Meetup Accept Bitcoin?
There are some costs. Here is what I have spent on this endevour so far:
Nostrsites.com 10,000 sats
A website that lets anyone to easily create a webpage by posting html as a nostr event. Paste the note id into nostrsites and it will render you a webpage. If you know how to write your own html code, you can do this completely free. The premium version allows you to use markdown and some other easier tools. I haven't tried them because I created my html index file before I knew about this. I paid for the premium service to support the developer, @BTCapsule and I prefer the human readable url. You can also add your own custom domain if you have it.
Orange Pill App 10,000 sats this month. ? sats next month. 330,000 sats for a lifetime membership(at the time of this writing)
I could have just hosted the website on TOR, but nobody would ever find it. I'm confident that I can make this amount of sats in a month on nostr anyway. Not to brag, but I make enough to cover this, by writing this blog and answering people's questions about nostr. Last month, I even bought lunch with the sats I earned. That was fun, but I like the idea of using the little amount I earn on giving back to the community. My high school economics teacher didn't only teach his class about fractional reserve banking. He also taught us about the theory of marginal utility. The first 3,000 sats are worth more than (3,003,000 - 3,000,000) sats. If I haven't eaten for a week, I would spend all my sats on a sandwich, but blogging bitcoin is a nym. Blogging Bitcoin doesn't need to eat, so he can afford to spend even the smallest income he receives writing on building a community.
I also have adopted the value 4 value model. I bet if Riverside Bitcoin Meetup creates enough value, it will at least receive enough value to cover the costs. Even if it doesn't, I believe I will recieve enough value out of this to justify the cost.
Why Is The Riverside Bitcoin Meetup Not On Meetup.com
It's not like "I'm having fun staying poor" and can't afford 15 bucks a month for meetup.com or even that I'm cheap. Well..I am cheap, but that's not why I didn't sign up for meetup.com. I'm not even mad that they banned me. It's a practical badge of honor. I didn't sign up for meetup.com because of something Matt Ridley calls, "rational optimism."
I am rationally optimistic that bitcoin will become the most widely used currency in the world within my lifetime. I am almost certain my son will not use a bank and I doubt my granddaughter will ever experience inflation. Some have compared bitcoin to cyber warfare, but I disagree. Bitcoin is a peaceful monetary revolution. It requires no violence. Nobody needs the guillotine. No need to lock up the bankers. Just opt-out of your savings account. Learn to take self-custody. It's not that hard. Don't believe otherwise. Buy a few things in the circular economy. Spend and replace if it makes you feel better.
I also believe nostr is a peaceful revolution on the Internet. In twenty years, we won't need giant data harvesting corporations to host servers for us the same way we won't need banks. Twenty years ago, you had to write html to create a social media account on Myspace. The nostr revolution will take us back to the days when you people created their own identities, but it's decentralized. The fact that Apple banned Damus because Apple can't take 30% of zaps is bullish as fuck. It means a three trillion dollar government sanctioned nym can't tax your bitcoin like it can tax the fiat payment rails. The default BTCpayServer store is a tea shop. I don't think tea was chosen by accident. In 1773, King George III couldn't auto-debit taxes from colonists because money was metal. Taxes could only be levied by force, but the colonists got pissed at the tea tax. They dressed up like Mohicans and dumped tea into the Boston harbor. They wrote essays using names like Brutus and Publius in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. They used cryptography like the Jefferson Disk to secure their communications. They didn't ask the Indian Trading Company for Permission to meet in the Salons.
I want to use public key cryptography, under a pseudonym to create a local, virtual community. I don't bemoan the established meetups. Some of them have been around for several years and nostr only became more popular about 6 months ago. The idea of a virtual community such as this comes from the father of the Cypherpunks, Timothy C. May.
Virtual Community
"Virtual communities, mentioned earlier, are networks of individuals or
groups which are not necessarily closely connected geographically. The word
“virtual” is meant to imply a nonphysical linking, but should not be taken to
mean that these are any less community-like than are conventional physical
communities.
The “Coven” in True Names is such a virtual community. Other examples
include churches, service organizations, clubs, criminal gangs, cartels, fan
47
groups, etc. The Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts are both examples of
well-established virtual communities that span the globe, transcend national
borders, and create a sense of allegiance, of belonging—a sense of
“community.”
I don't think Tim May was talking about Facebook or meetup.com when he spoke of these communities and we are finally reaching the point where it's easy enough for an Uncle Jim to run Matrix Servers, host websites over TOR, etc. I'm the Uncle Jim. At first, I just want to get together for coffee to discuss how to promote bitcoin. One guy I talked to knows much more about mining then me. Good. I don't want to be the smartest guy in the room about bitcoin anymore. I also do not plan on turning this virtual community into a criminal gang, but I like the idea of a club where payment is not required, but you have to hold a nostr key to be notified of events. Unfortunately, this is in conflict with the whole promoting bitcoin, so it doesn't make sense to keep it this way, but it's fun to mess around like this for a few months.
Nostr is a peaceful revolution because we don't need to protest into the facebook blacklist void, dox ourselves for a blue check, or enter a credit card into meetup.com. The OrangePill App is 3.00 a month, and I wish they would take bitcoin again. I would also like an apk file hosted on gitea, but that's an argument for another day. I would rather support a bitcoin focused company than a silicon valley start-up that's so close to the money printer spigot.
**I am bootstrapping a bitcoin meetup without twitter or meetup.com. **I don't know if it will work, but at least I didn't sign up for meetup.com because I need to try. If it doesn't work, I can always join meetup.com later. I bet we can even get the community to pay for it. It only takes 10 people zapping about 4,500 sats per month. I expect the price to go down in the next year or two as well.
We don't need to dump out big brother eye-phones into the sea. We can just use a plethora of other clients and
to circumvent their draconian rules. Again, this is a peaceful revolution. We don't even need to boycott this trillion dollar government sanctioned nym.
Public Key Cryptography
I also want to limit the initial members to people who understand public key cryptography enough to manage a nostr key. This does guarantee they are maxis, but it creates a natural filter. I want a good base built before the crypto yield chasers evangelize ShibuPepe NFT's or whatever. Once I meet a few people and collaborate on projects, we might agree to a meetup.com site, but it feels good to be un-bannable.
How I Did It
I used a template from w3 schools, changed some stuff, added an image I made using stable diffusion. Then I created a nostr chat room and substack. I host the website on Nostrsites.com. Check it out.
I also host the same page over TOR using Start9 pages.
I announce the location of the meetups in the nostr chat.I included a link to the chatroom.
I'll also announce them on the Orange Pill App. If a pleb wants to be notified of our next event, he(there are no women on the Orange Pill App near me) can sign up to the Substack or find us on the Orange Pill app.
I don't like the idea of collecting emails, but I wanted to leave the door open to neophytes who have not yet learned how to properly manage keys. In retrospect, I would have used an anonymous re-mailer like the cryptography mailing list, but I've never hosted one of those before.
Then I created a second account on the orange pill app, The Riverside Bitcoin Meetup.
The first meetup is on Saturday. I have one RSVP so far. That's a good start. I'll let you know how it goes.
Full disclosure: The Orange Pill App does not sponsor this blog.
Full disclosure: Nostrsites.com does not sponsor this blog.
Blogging Bitcoin
npub1wkljx5c6a8uccc5etws8ry0y3r4dgavh2dcav0tal4rtmcdl4z2sfu5u0t
Block Height: 796,320
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