San Diego Bitcoiners

The official blog of the San Diego Bitcoiners meetup.

May '24 Cete

cete /sēt/ (noun) - A group of badgers. Date: Thursday May 9th, 2024 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Flockstr. Flockstr is a Nostr-based RSVP platform. What is Nostr? Legacy meetup link. Event Details We will be joined by Brian De Mint, Head of Marketing for Orange Pill App and Author of "Parallel: The Bitcoin Social Layer." From the Amazon summary: Parallel draws parallels between the Bitcoin Social Layer and historical revolutio...
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April '24 Cete

cete /sēt/ (noun) - A group of badgers. Date: Thursday April 11th, 2024 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Flockstr. Flockstr is a Nostr-based RSVP platform. What is Nostr? Legacy meetup link. Event Details No presentation planned, come hang out! We've migrated the group chat from Matrix to Signal. If you'd like to join the chat, let me know at the next meetup or Signal message @corey.21. Subscribe to this blog via email or RSS ...
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Stack the Top

If you didn't see my post on Xwitter, we're stacking the top. If you can prove you bought the most expensive sats this cycle, your drinks are on us! See you next week. ...
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The Coldcards Have Landed

I received a bunch of Coinkite hardware. I will have it all available at the next meetup in March. 🚀    ...
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March '24 Cete

cete /sēt/ (noun) - A group of badgers. Date: Thursday March 14th, 2024 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Flockstr. Flockstr is a Nostr-based RSVP platform. What is Nostr? Legacy meetup link. Event Details Local bitcoiner Ben Dion will be presenting on Bitcoinization y Pura Vida: SINPE, Bitcoin Jungle App, and the Bitcoin movement in Costa Rica 6:00 pm Gather 6:45 pm Presentation 9:00 pm close We've migrated the group chat from ...
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Bisq: Tips and Trade-Offs

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. Tips These are some tips from the Wiki and my personal experience. General It adds privacy from your peers and other peering eyes to coinjoin before and after trading on Bisq. It doesn't have to be immediately after, just before you send to someone else. Running Bisq Be patient with initial Sync. Bisq can be resour...
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Bisq: Trade Rules and Disputes

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. Bisq has very specific rules that help set expectations and ensure a smooth experience for both peers. Sometimes, issues still occur. This can be due to bank, mail, or software issues. This post contains certain points from the Bisq wiki Trading Rules, Dispute Resolution, and Table of Penalties. It's a good idea to take a ...
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Bisq: Fiat Limits and Reputation

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. My previous post introduced fiat payment methods and their advantages/limitations. Other considerations for fiat payment methods include trading limits and reputation. For this post, I'll focus on the 5 most popular methods (Zelle, Strike, cash, Amazon egift cards, and money order). Bisq doesn't really have a reputation ...
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Bisq: Fiat Methods

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. Background One of the good things about Bisq being an open protocol is that all the trade info is transparent. Anyone can download the entire history of trades and use that info to see where the liquidity is, increasing your chances of a successful trade. But that's only one of the things to consider when chosing a paymen...
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Bisq: There is no Surveillance Discount

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. The biggest misconception about using Bisq (and other no-KYC platforms) I hear is that it's "too expensive." This is likely due to looking at the "Buy" tab and seeing most offers with at least a 5% spread: I don't blame people for coming to this conclusion. If you're used to using a large exchange, you don't usually see...
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February '24 Meetup (Bisq Demo)

Second Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday February 8th, 2024 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Flockstr. Flockstr is a Nostr-based RSVP platform. What is Nostr? Legacy meetup link. Event Details Want to buy bitcoin in a more private, sovereign way? Come learn about Bisq, the best way to buy bitcoin. This is the third annual Bisq demo by Corey. Check out his series of blog posts posts with background to get some ...
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Bisq Trade Funds Security

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. Seriously, Cash in the Mail? Yes, seriously. The most common question I get is Do you ever worry about losing funds?" My answer is no, after 100+ trades I've never lost a single sat or cent. This is after going through mediation and arbitration multiple times, losing my data directory, being ghosted by a peer, and f...
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Bisq Primer Part 3

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. The First Purchase (Taken from Wiki Introduction "In a Nutshell" with my edits) To complete your first trade on Bisq, I recommend the following steps, some will be detailed in future posts: Download from bisq.network. Verify digital signatures (instructions here). Add a fiat payment account for Zelle, cash by mail, or ...
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Bisq Primer Part 2

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. Selected Excerpts from the Wiki Introduction Components Bisq is a decentralized bitcoin exchange network best understood in terms of its major components: Bisq is a cross-platform desktop application that allows anyone to buy and sell bitcoin in exchange for national currencies or other cryptocurrencies. Bisq is a tra...
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Bisq Primer Part 1

This is part of a series of posts on Bisq, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. This series will serve as a primer to a Meetup presentation planned for February 2024. From the Wiki Main Page Bisq is a decentralized bitcoin exchange network that enables secure, private and censorship-resistant exchange of bitcoin for national currencies and other cryptocurrencies over the internet. The Bisq application forms a peer-to-peer network by discovering, connecting to, and working with one an...
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January '24 Meetup

Second Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday January 11th, 2024 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Flockstr. Flockstr is a Nostr-based RSVP platform. What is Nostr? Legacy meetup link. Event Details No presentation planned, come hang out! We've migrated the group chat from Matrix to Signal. If you'd like to join the chat, let me know at the next meetup or Signal message 855-774-8879. Subscribe to this blog via em...
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Don't Use Ledger Live

Everything you do in ledger live is being tracked, the code is embedded in "critical logic," and most of it goes to third parties, not Ledger. This software is required to initialize and update Ledger hardware wallets. You don't need to use it for sending and receiving Bitcoin, you can use Sparrow for that. Still, you'll eventually have to update the firmware, so you're better off getting a different device. This company has graduated from insecurely storing your personal data to giving away yo...
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Bitcoin Robberies in Sweden

I dont see many cited sources in English for this, but it seems that the country of Sweden believes it's a good idea to expose people's personal income and tax info for anyone to see. There has been a surge of Bitcoin holders being attacked and robbed. The root cause of these attacks, according to Wall, is Sweden's Offentlighetsprincipen laws, which allow public access to personal data such as residential addresses and tax records. He argued that criminals are misusing these laws and social me...
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How Google Can Ruin Your Life

This article details how a parent wanted to leverage modern tech to show his toddler's medical issue to a tech savvy Doctor and google, in all their masterful omniscience, decided that parent was evil, deleted their personal and business data, and reported him to the police. ...
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Third Party Doctrine

The third-party doctrine is a United States legal doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties—such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and e-mail servers—have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in that information. A lack of privacy protection allows the United States government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search a...
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December '23 Meetup

Second Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday December 14th, 2023 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Flockstr. Flockstr is a Nostr-based RSVP platform. What is Nostr? Legacy meetup link. Event Details No presentation planned, come hang out! We've migrated the group chat from Matrix to Signal. If you'd like to join the chat, let me know at the next meetup or Signal message 855-774-8879. Subscribe to this blog via e...
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16 Year Party

A friend came to me and said "what if we celebrated the halving like a global holiday?" I said "yeah totally!" Well that dude came back to me a while later with a plan that I initially thought was crazy, then went ALL IN. Background If you don't know what the halving is, here are the nuts and bolts: Bitcoin is hard money due to it's supply cap and planned issuance That issuance is currently 6.25 BTC (currently worth $218k) every 10 minutes This is reduced 50% every 210,000 blocks (~ 4 years) ...
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November '23 Meetup

Second Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday November 9th, 2023 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Private, self-hosted form. Legacy meetup link. Event Details Steven Penn from the Temecula meetup will be presenting on backing up your bitcoin wallet seed phrase cheaply and effectively by stamping it into metal. 6pm- Chat and drink 7pm- Stamping demo Join our Matrix Chat Subscribe to this blog via email or RSS ...
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Personal Finance Tidbits

I was in a conversation in the August meetup with a few attendees talking about the tax implications of living off of bitcoin and discussed some lesser-known facts: If you are married and living off of bitcoin alone, you can sell more than $116,950 worth of bitcoin in 2023 and pay $0 in federal capital gains taxes. This is due to the $27,700 standard deduction and $89,250 bracket with 0% rate. It's about half for single filers. "More than" is because you are taxed on earnings, not what you s...
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October '23 Meetup

Second Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday October 12th, 2023 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Private, self-hosted form. Legacy meetup link. Event Details No presentation planned, come hang out! Join our Matrix Chat Subscribe to this blog via email or RSS ...
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September '23 Meetup (1 week sooner!)

First (Not Second) Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday September 7th, 2023 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Private, self-hosted form. Legacy meetup link. Event Details This month's meetup will be a week earlier than usual. No presentation planned, come hang out! Join our Matrix Chat Subscribe to this blog via email or RSS ...
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August '23 Meetup

Second Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday August 10th, 2023 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP. Event Details No presentation planned. Come hang out! Join our Matrix Chat Subscribe to this blog via email or RSS ...
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Verify Your Nostr Profile

Nostr NIP-05 verification is now live for sdbitcoiners.com. If you don't know what nostr is, the phrase "dumb relays, smart apps" describes the framework well. It stands for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays. You can publish notes to many relays (some are free, some require payment) and the app you use to view notes determines what kind of experience you get (social media, chat, pastebin, website, etc). The most popular clients are currently Twitter-like. Nostr strives to be censor...
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July '23 Meetup

Second Thursday of the Month at Quantum Brewing Date: Thursday July 13th, 2023 Time: 6pm - 9pm Location: Quantum Brewing (OpenStreetMap, GoogleMaps) RSVP (select one) Private, self-hosted form (ignore payment request after submission). Legacy meetup link. Event Details Demo and Auction of an Ubuntu Node Box. Come learn about how you can take an old computer and make it the most sovereign Bitcoin machine in the history of Bitcoin machines, maybe ever. After the presentation, I will be...
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Spending Bitcoin Locally: PlanterSam

By Corey San Diego On Memorial Day I took my family to visit PlanterSam (website, google map) owned by my new friend, Morteza. We were in need of a new house plant or two and I was previously connected to Morteza through some local Bitcoiners so of course I wanted to support him and practice spending Bitcoin. I've patronized a few businesses in person, and many online. There are many ways to accept Bitcoin, each varying in sovereignty, reliability, and difficulty. Luckily Morteza has an IT ...
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