I just learned the hard way that Stacker News heavily leans Core. I also learned that it has a "downzap" system where trusted accounts can spend sats to suppress posts. If enough high-trust stackers downzap, the post gets "outlawed" and hidden from anyone on default settings. There's no public counter and you can't actually see it happening.

Just when you think it cant get worse x) Going to go touch grass.

https://stacker.news/items/1512794

This is why #BIP110 matters more than ever:

BITCOIN IS BECOMING FIAT

There are real financial incentives to flood Bitcoin with non-monetary data including .jpegs, inscriptions, ordinals, and tokens.[1][4][5][6][7]

- At scale, VC capital is paying for Bitcoin to not be Bitcoin. My independent research across 169 companies found that 56% of "Bitcoin-companies" have drifted into non-Bitcoin products, including every single company with a raise above $50M.[2]

- STRC's Cantillon reconstruction on the protocol is another example of this.[3] It's the very "financial engineering" Bitcoin was designed to end.

- Many of the largest Bitcoin influencers, educators, and conference organisers are funded by the same fiat structures they claim to oppose.[8] Sponsorship, affiliate, and ad revenue create a feedback loop where the creator cannot scrutinise the company paying for their reach. At $480,000 for a single sponsorship deal, the financial incentive to stay silent is structural, not personal.[8]

Across the entire industry, from development to marketing, the money is on the side of making Bitcoin not Bitcoin.

BITCOIN IS MONEY

Bitcoin was created to be money: "A peer-to-peer electronic cash system." That is the title of the white paper and the entire point of the protocol.[9]

For 5,000 years, every civilisation that handed control of its money to a central authority followed the same sequence: Debasement, inflation, inequality, collapse, reset.[11] The flaw was centralized trust. Bitcoin is the first technology in history that removes it entirely, enforcing a fixed supply through mathematics and a decentralised network distributing trust.

That is one of Bitcoin's most important contributions and it only works if the network stays decentralised.

THE PROBLEM

When non-monetary data floods the chain, it triggers a sequence that leads to Bitcoin becoming a vehicle to perpetuate fiat.

The more non-monetary data, the faster the blockchain grows, which raises the cost of running a full node, which reduces the number of people who can participate, which weakens decentralisation, which compromises security, which means Bitcoin stops being the tool that ends the 5,000-year fiat extraction cycle.[11]

THE SOLUTION

BIP-110 is a temporary soft fork that restricts non-monetary data at the consensus level. Over 21% of reachable nodes have already migrated to Bitcoin Knots, and now over 13% are also running BIP-110 (aka RDTS).[10]

This combo is a measurable signal that a meaningful portion of the network still treats Bitcoin as money.

DON'T TRUST, VERIFY

The funding relationships are there to find, though sometimes undisclosed.[8] I didn't realise this until recently. Writing the series is what made me see how important "don't trust, verify" is, even for structures I thought were a given.

Before you take anyone's word on their funding models and BIP-110, including mine, check their incentives. One way to do so is to ask an Ai to run an integrity check on any Bitcoin influencer, developer, or company. I hadn't done this work so deeply until recently. What I found changed how I see the entire space.

WHY I'M WRITING THIS

The fiat system specialises in making its own logic feel like common sense: "Of course yield is necessary. Of course running a node is too complicated. Of course the ETF is safer." These are what rational actors do when the incentive structure is built around them.[13] That's the sophistication of what Bitcoin is up against, but the money behind what's being said online is findable.

I thought things were different in Bitcoin, that we were genuinely changing the world, not just talking about it. I've experienced a lot of disillusionment this year and the series covers it. But there is a silver lining.

The protocol is intact. 12,000 nodes are enforcing Bitcoin as money by signalling for BIP-110.[10] Everything is becoming more visible. Thousands of nodes holding the line is the signal that matters.

CONTEXT & SOURCES

I referenced my own work a lot here but each piece contains independent research and refers to the work of others:

[1] Liberati, D. (2026, June 12). Fiat incentives in Bitcoin: A department-by-department map. https://daniella.io/fiat-incentives-everywhere/

[2] Liberati, D. (2026). Why Bitcoin companies drift. https://daniella.io/bitcoin-funding

[3] Liberati, D. (2026, June 12). STRC explained: The Cantillon effect rebuilt on Bitcoin. https://daniella.io/bitcoin-strc

[4] Liberati, D. (2026, June 9). Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Knots + BIP 110: Which node should you run? https://daniella.io/core-vs-knots/

[5] hodlonaut. (2026, March 27). The capture: The network. Citadel21. https://www.citadel21.com/the-network

[6] hodlonaut. (2026, April 29). The capture: The lever. Citadel21. https://www.citadel21.com/the-lever

[7] hodlonaut. (2026). The capture: The merge. Citadel21. https://www.citadel21.com/the-merge

[8] Liberati, D. (2026). How money shapes the signal. https://daniella.io/bitcoin-marketing

[9] Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

[10] Dashjr, L. (2026, June 22). Bitcoin network statistics. Luke Dashjr. https://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/services.html

[11] Liberati, D. (2026). The 5,000-year economic karmic cycle that Bitcoin is ending [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9HtTw897BA

[12] Liberati, D. (2026, June 1). Nostr's retention problem: A structural diagnosis. https://daniella.io/nostr-retention-structural-diagnosis/

[13] Liberati, D. (2026, June 14). The comfortable trap: The fiat-to-Bitcoin transition. https://daniella.io/the-comfortable-trap/

Additional reading:

Liberati, D. (2026, May 21). The 5,000-year economic karmic cycle that Bitcoin is ending. https://daniella.io/fiat-money-karmic-cycle/

Liberati, D. (2026, May 7). The prison door is open. https://daniella.io/leaving-fiat/

Bitcoin has no treasury, no foundation, no built-in developer funding model. Fiat filled the gap and the incentive structure followed.

When independent contributors disappear, we call it "burnout;" but what if that were a convenient label for a structural outcome?

This article from the "Fiat Incentives Everywhere" series doesn't retell what @hodlonaut already covered in "The Capture" (which I recommend reading), it examines the incentive structure underneath it.

Full analysis and sources: https://daniella.io/bitcoin-development

How much are your favourite Bitcoin #influencers, educators, and speakers being paid, by whom, and what does that do to the Bitcoin content and #podcasts we consume?

- Ads: A single 300K-view video can earn $5,000+ before sponsorships. The incentive is to create content optimised for emotional reactions and clicks.

- #Sponsors: Publicly filed press releases from a single Bitcoin company show a creator sponsorship at $22,000/month in cash and shares, and another exceeding $480,000 over 18 months. At that rate, what creator is going to scrutinise the service paying their salary? The audience never sees what wasn't said.

- Affiliate Deals: Some of the most recommended Bitcoin services pay creators up to $450 per converted lead. 57% of the top channels I audited had at least one undisclosed affiliate link. When that's not disclosed, you hear a personal endorsement, but what you're actually getting is a referral payment disguised as a personal endorsement.

- Conferences: Speaking slots, sponsors, and audience size feed each other in a loop that compounds and amplifies certain voices. I was offered a fully paid trip to a major conference plus a six-figure sum to present. Almost 1.5 Bitcoin. I turned it down because the offer itself was exactly what this series is about, fiat incentives everywhere...

I spent the last few months researching and writing the series, it's been cathartic. I'm glad to see that now this is an active conversation on Nostr. Here's all the data I gathered on the marketing side: https://daniella.io/bitcoin-marketing

https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqs20qkdpedrv5ps4thpt22utj275ncajyez4znn9eu4pk474ha3k5gcgvdj7

https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqspnstmxjc6tfm0pq8hs3evsxsr80wpe5h9rxecyg2dz6ezlr225mccny6vg

Yes, and here is why: https://daniella.io/bitcoin-marketing