Western Mass Bitcoin Meetup #44
Apr. 2026
Upcoming Event
Escape
Inflation
Documentary Screening
Date Friday, April 24, 2026
Time 7:00 PM EDT
Venue West Newton Cinema, West Newton, MA
Tickets $20 — available at door or in advance
Pre-event Drinks at Bluebird Bar, 5:00 – 6:30 PM
Register
app.evento.so
Podcast Spotlight
Plebchain Radio
Avi Burra & QW
"This is where the signal is distinguished from the noise."
- The broadcast hub for the sovereign web — exploring the synthesis of Bitcoin culture and the Nostr protocol.
- From breaking news to immersive music sessions, they bring you the voices shaping the parallel economy.
- One of the few shows living natively on Nostr — built for the censorship-resistant, value-for-value future.
- If you're curious about where Bitcoin and Nostr intersect, this is your on-ramp.
Buy on Amazon
Book Spotlight
Layered Money
Nik Bhatia
"Bitcoin is where the internet collides with money."
- Traces money's layered structure from Renaissance Florence through gold, central banking, and the dollar — showing how each era built on the last.
- Argues Bitcoin functions as a first-layer reserve asset — the same role gold once played — sitting at the base of a new monetary pyramid.
- Explains the 2008 financial crisis through the lens of layer collapse — and why the dollar system's fragility is structural, not accidental.
- Frames CBDCs and Bitcoin not as competitors but as different layers — one state-controlled credit, one government-free settlement.
Bitcoin History · 2012 – 2023
LocalBitcoins
- Founded 2012 in Finland by Jeremias Kangas — one of the first platforms for anonymous, in-person cash P2P bitcoin trading.
- Peak 2020: 1M+ active traders · $612M in quarterly volume · ~30,000 trades per day.
- Legal trouble followed the cash — user arrests for money laundering from 2014–2018; flagged by FinCEN for ties to Russia-linked exchange Bitzlato.
- Finnish regulators forced KYC in 2019 — volume collapsed. The thing that made it useful was the thing it had to kill.
- Pivoted away from in-person cash trades — shifted to coordinating online bank transfers and digital payment methods, losing its original identity.
- Closed Feb. 2023 — cited "crypto winter." Later hit with a €500K fine for KYC failures during its final years.
- The torch was passed — Bisq and RoboSats are now the primary no-KYC P2P bitcoin exchanges.
₿ Bitcoin News
Square Auto-Enables
Bitcoin Payments
March 30, 2026 · Block / Jack Dorsey
- Millions of U.S. merchants now automatically accept bitcoin via Square — no manual setup required. Opt-in became the default.
- Merchants settle in USD. Bitcoin is converted in the background over Lightning — zero friction, zero processing fees through 2026.
- Cash App users can pay at any enabled Square terminal directly from the app — bringing the whole Block ecosystem together.
- BTCmap integration in Cash App — merchants can opt to appear on the map so customers can discover nearby businesses accepting bitcoin.
- A shift from speculation to everyday commerce — cafés, salons, and local shops now bitcoin-enabled by default.
₿ Bitcoin News · Mar. 31, 2026
Google's Quantum Paper & the Panic That Followed
Google published a paper claiming future quantum computers could crack Bitcoin's encryption with as few as
500,000 physical qubits — a ~20× reduction from prior estimates — potentially in under 9 minutes.
Bitcoin Twitter had opinions. Brandon Black had receipts.
Brandon Black's Reality Check
TFTC #733: The Truth About The Quantum Threat with Brandon Black
Math ≠ Hardware
It's a theoretical paper on logical qubits. Building and scaling physical qubits is a completely separate — and chronically unsolved — challenge.
Error Correction Is Assumed, Not Proven
The 500K figure assumes perfect error correction techniques that have never been demonstrated at scale. That's a massive unsolved "if."
40 Years, Same Wall
Every time researchers scale quantum systems, new unexpected problems appear. That's not opinion — it's the consistent empirical track record of the entire field.
Three Proofs Required
Brandon needs to see: (1) scaling across two generations, (2) sub-exponential time growth with key size, (3) quantum beating classical on any crypto problem — even a small one. Zero of three achieved.
Rushing Is Also Risky
Post-quantum fixes aren't battle-tested. During NIST's review, 2 of 69 candidate algorithms were broken by classical computers. A hasty change on a $2T network could cause more damage than the threat.
The Work Is Already Happening
Bitcoin devs are researching post-quantum paths carefully — including isogeny-based cryptography at ~2× the on-chain footprint. Careful is not the same as ignoring.
₿ Bitcoin News
Iran Demands Bitcoin
to Pass Through Hormuz
Financial Times · Apr. 2026
- $1 per barrel — Iran is levying a bitcoin toll on all oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. A fully loaded supertanker could face up to $2 million per crossing.
- Ships must email Iranian authorities with cargo details. Once approved, operators have seconds to send bitcoin to an Iran-controlled wallet.
- Iran says bitcoin ensures fees "can't be traced or confiscated due to sanctions" — a direct rejection of dollar-denominated settlement.
- The toll system emerged alongside a US-Iran ceasefire — and is part of Iran's broader strategy to reduce dollar exposure and route around sanctions.
- ~20% of global oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Bitcoin just became a geopolitical instrument.
"Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in bitcoin, ensuring they can't be traced or confiscated due to sanctions." — Hosseini, via Financial Times
₿ Bitcoin Tech Topic
On-Chain Analytics & Privacy
The blockchain is a permanent, public ledger. Analytics firms use probabilistic heuristics to cluster UTXOs and infer ownership — none of it is certain, but enough of it sticks. Understanding how it works is the first step to protecting yourself.
Following the Chain
Common Heuristics — all probabilistic
Common-Input-Ownership Heuristic (CIOH)
Inputs in the same tx are assumed to belong to the same wallet. The most widely used clustering heuristic.
Address Reuse
Reusing an address permanently links all transactions to that address — publicly and forever.
Change Detection
Script type mismatches, round payment amounts, and output counts help analysts identify which output is change.
Dust Attacks
Tiny amounts sent to your addresses. Spending them consolidates UTXOs and links your wallet clusters.
What Breaks Heuristics
CoinJoin
Multiple parties combine inputs into one tx with equal outputs. CIOH can't determine which input paid which output.
PayJoin (P2EP)
Sender and receiver both contribute inputs. Looks like a normal tx — but CIOH is completely wrong about ownership.
Privacy Best Practices
Never reuse addresses
Use coin control
CoinJoin before spending
Avoid unnecessary UTXO consolidation
Don't spend dust
Lightning for small payments
Privacy is not just for criminals. Financial privacy is a basic human right — the ability to transact without surveillance, to give without broadcasting, to save without exposing yourself.
₿ Bitcoin Community
Bitcoin Circular Economies
Using bitcoin as money is the only way to truly break free from fiat. Not saving it. Not trading it. Spending and receiving it — with people you know, for things you need.
The Cycle
What It Is & Why It Matters
Bitcoin as Money
- Bitcoin changes hands for real goods and services — it stays local and keeps moving, exactly what money was designed to do.
- Sats spent with people you know have a high probability of coming back to you.
No Exchange Needed
- Earn and spend locally — no KYC, no fees, no counterparty risk.
- Converts your meetup into a de facto farmer's market, P2P exchange, and trust network all at once.
How It Starts
- One person brings one thing — eggs, honey, soap — others get comfortable transacting. It snowballs.
- Start with $5–10 consumables. Build the relationship before larger trades.
What Circulates
GOODS
eggsmeathoneymaple syrupbreadcoffeejamtallowcollagen
SERVICES
physical therapydentistrymechanicalelectricallegal
DIGITAL
laser engravingsartbooksBitcoin hardware
The Deeper Value
Sovereign Relationships
You know who raised it, what they fed it, how it was made. Sovereign relationships mean sovereign food and goods.
Proof of Work
Buying from a Bitcoiner supports someone who built something themselves — not a corporation. That's worth something.
Bitcoin Feels Real
Spending sats face-to-face with people you trust hardens Bitcoin's social contract. This is how it becomes money.
Not using your bitcoin as money is like leaving your car at the dealership, your guns at the range, or your gold at the Fed... the ability to actually use bitcoin as money is its killer app.
Bring Something to Sell
·
Come with Sats
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Break Free from Fiat
₿ Bitcoin Short Films
How Societies Collapse
Value 4 Value
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