@Derek Ross @EricFJ
Join The Bitcoin Army: Armada
https://armada.buzz/invite/naddr1qvzqqqyzz5pzpg55fyh7ssfs7k0q9wme8a2fxk0ufyyaqqgqpssj6t9dhz3d60swqqqqkq3d5r#BAADAQIDqkeUgmnWtK1HtYu0swkb8Q
Attention to ALL members of The Bitcoin Army
For nearly two years, we've been building this community on X.
And recently, X has been dismantling communities as a feature on the platform.
Some of us have been looking forward and trying to figure out what comes next.
Do we just leave it alone and hope X rolls out something similar?
Do we migrate somewhere else?
Do we just go back into the void?
(sorry, that last one was a personal thought that slipped out)
I don't think the answer is to disappear from X the way the communities are being disappeared.
I believe it is still useful to be here.
X gives us reach. It lets us find people,
challenge our ideas as well as the ideas of others,
host conversations, bring new people into Bitcoin,
and just have fun.
But I think there is a difference between using a platform
and building a community on one.
If I have learned anything from Bitcoin in just the last year,
it is not to confuse access with ownership.
My bank account is mine unless the bank says otherwise.
My social-media account is part of the identity I've built,
outward and inward,
until someone who runs the platform changes the rules.
My community feels like it's mine
until the owners say communities are no longer a thing.
Some of us have begun to gather under the banner of The Bitcoin Army
on Armada, a community platform built on Nostr.
I'm not a big Nostr guy, but I have become willing to learn
if there's something that can replace "access" with "ownership."
Because it looks to me like that's more of a possible thing there.
Here on X, visibility, rules, algorithms,
use of your own account:
all of this is controlled. Centralized.
On Armada,
members of The Bitcoin Army are building channels,
threads, roles, invites, voice and video.
These things are OURS.
Not one person's, not a committee sitting somewhere
way out of touch with what it has domain over,
not any one member's.
X can decide tomorrow that the product we built our community around
works differently than it did yesterday and they have been proving that.
It is a centralized platform,
and it explicitly reserves broad enforcement
and service-control rights in its own terms.
My Nostr identity belongs to my keys, not to a platform.
I'm the only one that can really suspend my account.
If something disappears or changes,
I don’t have to prove I’m Killer ₿ all over again,
Or give away too much of what I don’t want to.
I'm not leaving X. I'm probably never leaving X.
There doesn't seem to be much escape.
And if you’ve known me even for a little, you know I’ve always maintained,
"Fuck this place! But you guys are cool!"
For TBA, X can be a place to recruit and get together,
just like it has always been,
for as long as it still somewhat works that way.
Armada can be a place where we build.
I want The Bitcoin Army to exist somewhere
that reflects the things we spend all day talking about:
sovereignty, portability, verification, privacy,
censorship resistance and of course,
reducing unnecessary trusted third parties.
So we’re going to start building there.
If you want to grow The Bitcoin Army, come with us.
Own your keys.
Own your identity.
Help us Own OUR community.
