War (2)

• Iranian Foreign Minister Syed Abbas Aragotchi declared the Strait of Hormuz 'completely open' for the remaining one week of the ceasefire, which sent West Texas Intermediate crude down nearly 10% to $85.90 a barrel.
• The U.S. and Iran are negotiating a plan that includes the U.S. releasing $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds in return for Iran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium.

Protocol (8)

• Citi Group analysis found that a portfolio allocation split between gold and Bitcoin improves returns in bond bull markets and provides resilience during bear steepening cycles tied to fiscal concerns.
• Citi analyst Alex Saunders noted Bitcoin has risen 9% over the past two months while spot gold declined 4%, and that Bitcoin often outperforms gold when bond markets weaken.
• The narrative that Iran would require Bitcoin-based tolls for oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, attributed to an Iranian energy union official, was repeatedly amplified by global media, shifting Bitcoin's perception toward a geopolitical instrument.
• The U.S. government moved 8 Bitcoin linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack, worth $606,000, to Coinbase Prime, raising questions about its intended destination despite court-mandated restitution to Bitfinex.
• The U.S. government holds seized cryptocurrency valued at about $24.5 billion, which it said would form part of a national strategic Bitcoin reserve.
• TRM Labs data shows around $141 billion in stablecoin transactions last year were linked to illicit activity, and investigator ZachXBT documented approximately $420 million in suspicious USDC flows since 2022 that went unblocked.
• Charles Schwab is launching direct spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading for retail clients through its Schwab Crypto platform, with Paxos handling sub-custody and a transaction fee of 20 basis points.
• David Bennett reported a bot attack caused Fountain's API to backlog Podcast Index with 500,000 polling requests, preventing his last two episodes from distributing and cratering his download numbers.

Stablecoins (2)

• Circle faces a class action lawsuit from Drift Protocol investors who lost $285 million in an April 1 exploit, accusing the firm of failing to freeze stolen USDC during an eight-hour cross-chain transfer window.
• Tether committed up to $127.5 million and other partners $20 million to help recover funds from the Drift Protocol hack, with CEO Paolo Arduino positioning Tether as more responsive than Circle.

AI & Tech (1)

• A security researcher discovered sophisticated counterfeit Ledger Nano S Plus devices on a Chinese marketplace, featuring tampered hardware and firmware designed to steal seed phrases via a malicious Ledger Live app.

Macro (3)

• He outlines a 'three burners' macro framework: liquidity, manufacturing PMI, and leverage. Ross sees the 'liquidity blob' expanding due to U.S. fiscal war spending, a recovery in the ISM Manufacturing PMI above 50, and a resurgence in bank lending.
• Ross forecasts a multipolar end to U.S. dollar hegemony, with oil increasingly traded in yuan and gold. He interprets U.S. inaction over yuan-based Strait of Hormuz payments as tacit acceptance of this new reality, marking the end of the petrodollar system.
• He references a historical theory that a hegemon's decline begins when its debt interest payments exceed military spending, a threshold the U.S. has now crossed.

Inflation (1)

• Ross believes the U.S. is entering a period of 'structural inflation' in the 3-6% CPI range, driven by costly onshoring of manufacturing and military buildup. He argues this environment necessitates eventual yield curve control, a form of financial repression that erodes citizen purchasing power.

War (1)

• He asserts the U.S. is already in World War III, a conflict seeded in 2008 and marked by proxy wars. Ross predicts a U.S. move to seize Iran's Karg Island to control the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to pressure Iran and gain leverage over China, which is dependent on oil imports.

Fed (1)

• He views the Federal Reserve as currently irrelevant, 'neutered' by the Treasury, and expects it to become a tool for yield curve control only when war borrowing overwhelms private demand for U.S. debt.

AI & Tech (1)

• Ross argues AI-driven 'jobless recovery' will create a desperate white-collar class, necessitating a wealth redistribution like UBI. He claims this is not socialist dogma but a pragmatic response to humans competing against superior AI, citing potential civil unrest.

Markets (2)

• The S&P 500 reached new all-time highs this week, rebounding from a 9.67% drop in the past 10 days, erasing the entire Iran war sell-off. NASDAQ also hit new all-time highs.
• Coffeezilla criticizes STRC, arguing it's marketed as a risk-free money market with 11.5% interest, but it's a stock with no obligation to repay principal, creating an unsustainable yield snowball.

War (1)

• The market recovery follows de-escalation in the Iran conflict, including a maintained ceasefire despite failed negotiations. The US also blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, shifting oil demand to American exports.

Energy (1)

• US oil exports hit all-time highs as Middle Eastern oil demand rerouted, contributing to a perceived domestic economic boom. Oil prices, while still elevated from pre-war levels, are on the lower end of wartime pricing.

Trade (1)

• The US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz places immense economic pressure on Iran, impacting 90% of its $110 billion annual trade, 80% of government export earnings, and 24% of its GDP.

Protocol (2)

• Bitmine, led by Tom Lee, has accumulated 4.1% of Ethereum's total supply, staking 60% of it, and generates $250-300 million annually from staking rewards. Bitmine has taken the lead in the Ethereum accumulation race, outperforming competitors like Sharplink and Sbet.
• Bitcoin community member Jameson Lop proposed BIP 361 to address the quantum threat, phasing in restrictions over five years. It would first prevent new funds from being sent to 7.1 million quantum-vulnerable Bitcoin addresses, then freeze existing coins, forcing users to move funds to quantum-safe addresses.

AI & Tech (11)

• Amethyst transitioned to RT Tor, a Rust implementation of the Tor network, resolving previous crashing issues caused by outdated cTor bindings.
• Amethyst version 1.7.3 improved video playback UI and migrated badges and bookmarks to new NIP kind numbers for compatibility with updated standards.
• Amethyst is re-implementing MLS and Marmot protocols and a new secp256k1 library in pure Kotlin, based on published test vectors, aiming for encrypted direct messaging and Schnorr signature support.
• Amethyst is developing NIP-AC for peer-to-peer WebRTC voice/video calls over Nostr, with two competing approaches being WebRTC and the newer, potentially more performant media over QUIC.
• Nostralgia version 1.27 introduced video recording and editing, animated GIF support for profiles, new keyboard shortcuts, and private replies within direct messages.
• Sandré is developing Nostria version 4 with integrated local AI models, including Google's Gemma 4 running in-browser for chat and image generation, and future plans for Nostr-based AI agents.
• Titan version 0.1.0 launched a new internet browser with native Nsite capability, allowing pubkeys to publish websites via Nostr events and registering names permanently on-chain using Bitcoin transaction op-returns.
• Bickl version 1.5.0, a decentralized cycling tracker, added background GPS tracking for GrapheneOS and integrated eCash transactions via Nutsapps, enabling scavenger hunt features with digital tokens.
• Sprout, a Slack-like communications platform by Bloq, uses Nostr and Blossom for chat rooms, NIP-42 for authentication, NIP-29 for group management, and natively integrates AI agents via a Goose instance.
• Mesh LLM version 0.56.0, a distributed LLM inference system, uses Nostr key pairs for node identities and coordinates AI computation across machines, presenting potential for L402 Lightning payments.
• NostrVPN added exit node support, allowing servers to act as privacy-enhancing exit nodes for WireGuard tunnels, synchronizing invites and aliases over Nostr, and released an Umbrel package.

Social Media (1)

• Social version 0.15 allows scheduling recording sessions for live streams and enables viewers to create TikTok-style vertical video clips from shows.

AI Infrastructure (2)

• Note-Tek version 0.10 Beta integrated the Zap Store's Nostr-based app update mechanism, enabling automatic application updates, which is generally good for security but raises concerns about user control and enshittification.
• White Noise switched from BlurHashes to ThumbHashes for image previews, significantly reducing size while increasing quality, and progressed on NIP55 push notifications and cursor-based chat message pagination.

Open Source (3)

• Amber's 6.00 pre-release introduced per-connection keys for NIP-46 remote signing, enhancing security by isolating compromises, and also added automatic updates via the Zap Store NIP.
• Nostria released a new native mobile app using the Tauri Rust framework for Linux, macOS, and Windows, featuring improved Amber/Aegis NIP55 signer integration and a focus on social sharing previews.
• OpenSats announced its 16th wave of Nostrgrants, funding Amethyst Desktop, Nostermail, Nostrord (a Kotlin multiplatform NIP-29 client), Nuru Nuru (a Japanese client), and renewing Hamster's grant.

Protocol (8)

• Nymchat reverted its Marmot protocol integration for NIP-17 group chats due to the lack of proper multi-device support, highlighting the importance of this feature for cross-platform clients.
• NUC, the Nostr Army Knife, updated to version 0.19.5 with Blossom multi-server support for parallel uploads/downloads, a new key command, and native support for the outbox model.
• Snort's security audit led to fixes for Schnorr signature verification and NIP46 relay message forgery protection, alongside improvements in PIN encryption, batch verification, and lazy loading.
• Relator, a Web of Trust scoring engine, introduced a scheme for writing validators in the ELO functional programming language, publishing them as Kind 765 events on Nostr, and launched a plugin marketplace.
• A proposal for NIP 24 suggests adding `published_at` and `created_at` timestamps to all replaceable events, distinguishing original creation from last edit, which would simplify tracking user join dates.
• NIP-17 for private direct messaging replaced NIP4 to address metadata leakage and weaker encryption, utilizing NIP44 for encryption and NIP59 (Giftwrap) for metadata protection, with randomized `created_at` timestamps.
• NIP-17's Giftwrap uses an unsigned 'rumor event' (Kind 14) wrapped in a signed 'seal' (Kind 13) and then an outer ephemeral 'seal' (Kind 1059) to protect sender identity, though it lacks post-compromise or forward secrecy.
• NIP-46, the Nostr remote signing protocol (NSEC-Bunker), allows clients to request signatures from an application holding the NSEC via Kind 24133 events and NIP44 encryption, using JSON-RPC-like structures.