What It’s Like to Plan Vacations for Billionaires - Seems like a lot of ultra wealthy are part time digital nomads. I used to use a travel agency consierge service when I was doing a lot of business travel. It wasn't quite billionaire level like what's described in the article but it was super awesome. It made things so much more manageable. I'd realise I needed to be in a particular country and city the next day, and no need to scramble through booking sites, just email the consierge from the Blackberry (later it was from iPhone), get a few options to choose from within minutes, make a choice, everything booked and sorted, no need to do anything, just turn up. It was totally worth it. thecut.com #

The ‘boring phone’: stressed-out gen Z ditch smartphones for dumbphones - It's totally worth having a dumb phone for those times when you really want to be in the moment and not worry about being online. There are a suprising amount of services that work with dumb phones too, and they are very efficient, all features via simple text menu choices. Even for Bitcoin in some African countries. I think this 'Newtro' trend is pretty cool. theguardian.com #

Airdrop Farming 101: What Is It and How Do You Get Started? - I've been wondering what this was fir a while. Basically it's finding crypto projects early before they issue a coin, getting involved, in the hope of being sent free or nearly free coins when the project goes live. Sounds a lot like beta testers. rankfi.com #

Bitcoin Mining Decentralization ‘Not Great,’ Says Ordinals Creator - An investigation revealed that many mining pools have been flat out lying to miners, and miners, who decide on which transactions get into a bkock, were totally unnaware that their pools were actually just proxies for the same large mining pool. Currently 1 large mining pool handles 50% of all transactions. Miners have been reluctant to upgrade to a version which fixes the issue. Maybe they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them? Others blame the miners, speaking of 'the nuclear' option where the bitcoin community could change the algorithm in such a way as to put all current miners out of business, so a fresh cohort of miners that are willing to run the new version turn up. There's more detailed info in a recent TFTC podcast. On the whole quite bearish. Feels like it could result in quite a bit of a traffic jam. Also wouldn't the existence of a nuclear option cause some to conclude that ultimately the miners don't decide, even if that's what the marketing departments say? unchainedcrypto.com #

Bitcoin Mining Decentralization ‘Not Great,’ Says Ordinals Creator - Seems like this is way overdue. It will be even better when they start supporting other more popular coins like Bitcoin and Etherium. techcrunch.com #

Istanbul, Dalaman, Izmir: Where to go with Türkiye’s new digital nomad visa - There isn't a huge amount of information in the article, but nice to see more digital nomad visas. It can be used by 21-55 year olds, requires some documentation to be uploaded, after which you can get the visa at a local embassy. Worth making sure you have backup plans for banklessly procuring things like laptops and key gear you rely on before embarking on such adventures. euronews.com #

The rise of booze-free backpacking: why gen Z are choosing to travel sober - Gen Zers are apparently much more risk averse. Drinking is not seen as being very cool anymore. theguardian.com #

New Post: Crypto on Stripe markjgsmith.com #