I’m a freedom technology entrepreneur and earlyish adopter of Bitcoin. I help people increase their financial self-sovereignty and privacy through various efforts. I’m the founder of Trajan – a Bitcoin Ordinals-powered reputation platform.
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RECENT ARTICLE – STACKS FOUNDATION
Builder Spotlight: Trajan
Ragnar Lifthrasir is the Founder of Trajan, a reputation and identity platform that’s key infrastructure for the Stacks community and Web 3.0 networks. When Ragnar became increasingly frustrated with sites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor, he started brainstorming how professional representation could be different on Web3. In our conversation below, we talk about the vision and philosophy behind Trajan, the different problems that the project aims to solve, and the future of social capital and identity. READ MORE –>
RECENT PODCAST APPEARANCE
What Bitcoin Did
“A Bitcoin Civilization with Ragnar Lifthrasir – Episode 471”
RECENT BLOG POSTS
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Secret Bitcoiner Users of Monero – Come Out Of The Shadows
This post aims to convince you that now is a suitable and safe time to come out of the shadows and publicly voice your support of Monero. Why should you believe me? Because I have done it, I’ll share the positive consequences of doing so.
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The Stacks Summit “Bitcoin Unleashed”
Bitcoin is necessary but insufficient to build a new financial system away from the State-Megacorp duopoly. Stacks offers a promising tech stack to do so. The Bitcoin Unleashed conference offered “a wide range of Bitcoin-focused programming. Sessions included live demos, technical workshops, keynote speeches, parties, panels, and discussions on everything from DeFi to decentralized gaming, NFTs, etc.”
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Cypherpunk Money, Not Hard Money
Bitcoin meets the definition of (imperfect) cypherpunk money – the first of its kind. Bitcoin doesn’t meet the definition of hard, soft, or sound money, although one could say it’s metallic peer-to-peer electronic cash.
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Replace Bitcoin Maximalism with Freedom Maximalism
Bitcoin is necessary but not sufficient to build a peer-to-peer financial system. Bitcoin is one tool in the financial self-sovereignty toolbox. Bitcoin is a hammer. What is the drill? What is the carpenter’s square? We can’t build a financial freedom house without all the tools. We need other peer-to-peer networks that use proof of work to disintermediate third parties that censor startup fundraising, lending, or publishing.
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Bitcoin: Third-Party vs. Peer-to-Peer
By replacing trust with computation, Bitcoin is the separation of money and identity. Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations reattach identity to cash. And by functioning peer-to-peer without needing user identity and being comprised of digital computer bits, Bitcoin is permissionless and pseudonymous. However, Anti Money Laundering (AML) laws insert a third party, severing peers. KYC/AML Bitcoin isn’t Bitcoin.
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Money and The Mob
Elites, be they financial, tech, or political, wield tremendous power, except against organized angry mobs. As the economy worsens, censorship increases, and ethnic conflict burns, more mobs will organize financial attacks on institutions to punish them for perceived corruption and malevolence. If you’re going to join one of these swarms protect yourself by practicing good OpSec, such as using a pseudonym, using bitcoin to pay for services, and use encrypted communication channels.
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Free Men Don’t Ask Permission – Bitcoin Circular Economy
A Bitcoin circular economy is one where commerce flourishes free of surveillance, censorship and reliance on third parties. Anyone can participate by earning, spending, donating and buying bitcoin from those who do the same. A Bitcoin economy runs apart from and parallel to the central bank fiat economy. Bitcoin commerce is Bitcoin exemplified.