Spent a few days in a sanctioned country. The biggest surprise wasn’t censorship. It was realizing how much of the modern developer stack simply stops working. AI assistants. Cloud services. Developer tools. It reminded me of something: AI can make you faster. But it should never become a dependency. When the tools disappear, your engineering skills are all that’s left. That’s one reason I love building on Bitcoin and Nostr. In a world that’s becoming increasingly permissioned, they’re a constant reminder to build systems—and skills—you actually own.

Just went to Russia for vacation. Crazy how censorship is powerful even Nostr through Primal was not able to make it through. This is strong case towards relay decentralization. After VPN struggles , I could get access to Nostr. I thought with decentralized everything will be fine, turns out not completely. I believe there is still works to do even if the foundation is there.

Just been blocked by bank to withdraw cash as I’m traveling abroad. You have funds but you cannot take it back due to limits and authorization. It reminds me : not your keys not your coins . It is true for crypto and particularly true for fiat. Bitcoin is a real game changer for financial independence.

Is it me, or for a nice looking AI generated app Lovable is the best ? Curious to have your thoughts?

I'm genuinely impressed by how quickly the Nostr community continues to evolve the protocol. Particularly, how it keeps proving it's much more than a social protocol. The Open Marketplace Protocol is another great example. With the same event model, we can build: ⚡ Product listings ⚡ Collections ⚡ Merchant preferences ⚡ Encrypted order communication ⚡ Order processing Simple primitives. Endless possibilities. Just signed events, sovereign identity, and builders shipping faster than ever. Fascinating how every new NIP and protocol expands what's possible without sacrificing simplicity. Nostr is becoming that missing data layer. ⚡ If this gets you excited, zap it and tell me: what should we build next on Nostr?