Damus
Marco Barulli profile picture
Marco Barulli
@mbarulli

Progressive bitcoiner.
Building and using decentralized tools that matter.
Working on Bitcoin-backed loans at Firefish.io.

Relays (5)
  • wss://relay.nostr.band/ – read & write
  • wss://eden.nostr.land/ – read & write
  • wss://offchain.pub/ – read & write
  • wss://wfx36iktgqimnmjmyzvreoffipg7bja2dlznpunpfkpvge722hk54jad.local/ – read & write
  • wss://relay.nostrcheck.me/ – read & write

Recent Notes

mbarulli profile picture
<rant>

I discovered Bitcoin in its early days, back in 2011. I was lucky. I was simply searching the internet for a way to receive donations anonymously for Clipperz.is, an online password manager I created with a friend, a small project with a truly paranoid threat model.

Happy users wanted to send us money, but we did not want to know their names, their email addresses, or, even worse, the details of their PayPal or bank accounts. Bitcoin was the right solution to our very specific problem.

To me, Bitcoin was a tool, not a religion or a get-rich-quick scheme. It was a tool that nicely complemented our little project and served the interests of its small user base of geeks. It took me time and effort to understand the much larger potential of Bitcoin, and this was only possible because of the people I met along this journey of discovery. A remarkably eclectic crowd: techies and laypeople, young and seasoned, spanning the entire political spectrum, all united by a shared fascination with Bitcoin.

This tiny community of Italian Bitcoiners was full of enthusiasm, and it fueled my passion for the technology. Quite naturally, Bitcoin became the cornerstone of my professional life.

For several years, I was completely absorbed in startup life and didn't spend much time attending Bitcoin events or following the Bitcoin Twitter bubble. Bitcoin itself was more than enough to keep me busy, enthusiastic, and intellectually stimulated.

Now that my life is no longer so hectic, I am able to spend more time here on Nostr or attending Bitcoin events, big and small. And I’ve realized that things have changed dramatically. What is most disconcerting to me is this: where has the openness to diversity and the richness of ideas from the early days gone?

I’m encountering almost exclusively Bitcoiners who rigidly conform to a standard set of beliefs, individuals who identify with some combination of the following totems: no taxes, no vaccines, pro-guns, anti-immigration, global warming is a hoax, the EU is a dictatorship, long live Mises, long live Milei, long live Bukele, HODL, bull run, to the moon, God, family, gym, steak and eggs…

Never a dissenting voice. Yet back in the distant year of 2011, it was clear to us that Bitcoin was for everyone. Even today, I keep hearing that, but at the same time, a narrative, sometimes delivered in a harsh tone, has emerged that pushes away a large portion of potential users who don’t necessarily identify with this bundle of convictions.

Understanding and embracing Bitcoin requires significant effort and genuine intellectual curiosity. Let’s not make the journey of discovering and understanding Bitcoin harder than it already is.

Bitcoin is for everyone. Even today.

</rant>
mbarulli profile picture
An open letter from 70 European renowned economists asks for an acceleration in the launch of the digital Euro.
While these academics correctly identifies the risks of Europe’s current dependence on foreign payment monopolies, its proposed solution (the Digital Euro) suffers from a profound ignorance of an existing, superior alternative: Bitcoin.

The signatories frame the Digital Euro as the "only defense" for European sovereignty, yet they overlook a battle-tested technology that already achieves their stated goals without the inherent risks of a centralized state currency.
They claim that a European CBDC is the "only" way to ensure resilience. However, Bitcoin has operated 24/7 since 2009 with 99.9% uptime, providing a globally available, robust payment infrastructure that is "immediately available" today, unlike the Digital Euro which remains a project with mired in political negotiations with undefined technological foundations.

The economists all belong to SFL (Sustainable Finance Lab), an independent academic think tank stemming out of Utrecht University’s School of Economics. “The mission of the Sustainable Finance Lab is to contribute to a financial sector that serves people and planet.”
And yet, in 2025, they still ignore Bitcoin.

You can find the letter (PDF) here: https://sustainablefinancelab.nl/wp-content/uploads/sites/506/2026/01/The-Digital-Euro-Let-te-public-interest-prevail.pdf
mbarulli profile picture
I often find myself at odds with Nic Carter’s worldview. Nonetheless, he is consistently brilliant at articulating complex concepts and challenging topics with clarity. This short story is yet another testament to his ability. Over six short chapters, he depicts events triggered by a sudden breakthrough in quantum cryptography.

> "But this is a story, not a prediction."

It is a fascinating, stimulating, and thoroughly enjoyable story indeed. Read it here: https://trilliondollarsalvage.pages.dev/
mbarulli profile picture
Firefish just released a new video explaining how their Bitcoin-backed loans work.
Firefish is built by bitcoiners, for bitcoiners, and it stays true to fundamental values:
- open source code (check it on Github: https://github.com/Firefish-io/firefish-protocol)
- P2P interactions (between borrowers and lenders)
- self-custody at every step (no re-hypothecation)

(30% of your first loan if you register with the referral code “marco” or from this link: https://firefish.io?ref=marco)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6mw8hw-NZg
mbarulli profile picture
Nature just published a paper about a study conducted on the Milan metro. Researchers observed the behavior of passengers when confronted with an everyday social need.

- Baseline Condition: When a woman who appeared to be pregnant entered a train car under normal circumstances, 37.6% of the seated passengers offered her a seat.
- Experimental Condition: When an individual dressed as Batman entered the same train car at the same time, the percentage of passengers who offered their seat to the pregnant woman significantly increased to 67.2%.

Researchers attributed this stark difference to the effect of unexpected stimuli. The sudden appearance of an unusual figure (Batman) served as a strong distraction or alerting event.
When confronted with something highly unexpected, people are forced to break their routine and become more alert to their immediate surroundings. This heightened state of awareness causes them to notice the needs of others, such as the pregnant woman, more readily than they would in their normal, inattentive state. (e.g. staring into mobile phones)

We definitely need more fake Batmans to make the world a kinder place.


(Here the link to the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44184-025-00171-5)
mbarulli profile picture
MY SAZMINING EXPERIENCE:
A CAUTIONARY TALE OF MINING EXPECTATIONS

About one year ago, I decided to try mining. After assessing the various options, from solo mining to cloud mining, I selected @nprofile1q... since I liked the interest alignment between the company and its customers.

If you're not familiar with Sazmining (https://www.sazmining.com), it's a company that offers hosted mining services. Here's how it works:

1. You purchase a mining rig from Sazmining, which gets shipped and deployed at one of their farms (located in Paraguay or Norway).
2. You pay a monthly hosting fee that covers energy and basic maintenance costs.
3. The hashrate of your rig is directed to the Luxor mining pool.
4. You earn sats, with Sazmining taking a 15% fee on your earnings.

In this scheme, Sazmining has all the incentives to keep your rig running constantly and efficiently.

Sazmining claims that mining with them will allow you to acquire Bitcoin at a much lower price than the market price. As of today, they claim on their homepage that you can get 1 BTC for $58K, which would be almost a 50% discount.

However, my personal experience tells a different story. I'd like to share my numbers with you. I purchased a Bitmain S21 for $5K and had it shipped to the Paraguay farm where the energy costs (0.047$/KWh) are covered by the hosting subscription ($120/month). Note that your monthly fee may vary slightly due to factors like local energy curtailments or overconsumption by your rig.

When I purchased my mining rig from Sazmining, they estimated that I could reach break-even within 15 months (by May 2025). At that time, their website featured a useful simulator that allowed me to experiment with different scenarios and estimate my potential returns. Unfortunately, this simulator is no longer available.

However, I've had to revise that forecast significantly. Today, my optimistic estimate suggests that it will take around 27 months (until July 2026) for me to reach break-even. Notably, this change isn't of course due to any decrease in Bitcoin's price.

So far, I’ve earned 3.4M sats, but the pace of payouts to my wallet is getting slower: from 340K every 3 weeks at the start, to 340K every 6 weeks now. Quite likely this is due to the significant increase in the global hashrate.

Combining both upfront hardware expenses ($5K) along accumulated hosting fees ($1300), I’ve paid a 110K USD/BTC price for my 3.4M sats!

After one year I’m still pretty far from enjoying the advertised discount and, of course, if I had opted for DCA purchases, I would have enjoyed much better results.

Hopefully, my return on investment will improve in the coming months, but there are no certainties, since global hashpower keeps growing.

I have the feeling that any other strategy (e.g. DCA) would have performed much better over the past year.


mbarulli profile picture
Today is a good day to relaunch what #Ross posted on Medium almost 4 years ago: a proposal for a new decentralized architecture for social media, a proposal that will appear quite familiar to all Nostr users. A truly remarkable document that could potentially serve as a roadmap for Nostr development.

Some of Ross's design goals have already been achieved by Nostr. Others still require further work. Some may not be well-received by the community or may be technically challenging to implement within the protocol.

I am skeptical about the role of advertisers being as central as Ross envisions. In his vision, advertisers are considered an essential pillar, alongside users, content servers, and interface providers.

Nonetheless, it’s something I recommend reading to everyone.
And the handmade diagrams are just so cute! <3



https://rossulbricht.medium.com/decentralize-social-media-cc47dcfd4f99
#freeross #socialmedia