I don't know if you freaks are feeling the pressure of populaces around the globe hitting a breaking point after being crushed for too long by the merging of corrupt crony capitalism and the State, but ya boi certainly is. Over the weekend, we saw the people of Chile and Lebanon join the ranks of those around the world in places like Hong Kong, France, Spain, and Haiti, among many others, who have hit the streets in an attempt to force change. It seems that people everywhere around the world have had enough with the encroachment of the State in their lives.

In Chile, people have set fire to buildings, subway stations and other edifices, finally hitting a boiling point after months of increased energy prices and water shortages were capped off with recent fare hikes for public transit in the city of Santiago. From what I can gather, the State has been unfairly favoring big business over the people during this escalation and is now beating down protests with force to make sure the plebs fall in line. Here's a good thread on the situation that you should check out if you want to learn more.

If we pan over to Lebanon, decades of government corruption and cronyism have hit a head in recent weeks after the government announced they would begin taxing WhatsApp usage within the country. This seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back as a QUARTER of the country's population has hit the streets to tell the crony elites that enough is enough. Corruption has become too blasé.

Maybe all of this is just one big coincidence, but it feels as if the world is experiencing a great awakening. Or, more accurately, a collective breaking of the back. The common man has been pushed too far for too long everywhere you look. The State's encroachment into the common man's life and his bank account has gone too far. The merging of corporate interests and the politicians they finance into one nebulous entity seems to be the playbook across the world. Highlighting the overwhelming need for apolitical systems that are extremely hard to co-opt and corrupt. Systems completely bereft of the type of thinking that persists throughout the circles of crony elites throughout the world. Systems like Bitcoin.

Lightning, also so hot right now

Over the weekend, hundreds of people gathered in Berlin to learn about the current state of the Lightning Network and the cool apps being built that leverage it. Above are links to two full days of talks and content about the current hurdles the network faces, how the network is currently being used, and how things are improving and can be improved moving forward. I highly recommend you jump through some of the talks if you're bored at working and looking for some enlightening content.

One thing that stuck out to me from the weekend is the emergence of more fleshed out gaming products that allow users to win/lose sats while gaming. A vertical that we here at the Ƀent think can be a huge Trojan Horse for wider adoption and have been covering since January of this year. Only nine months later, we have two much better looking games that seem to have the potential to gain traction. Raiki, a Tekken-like game brought to us by the team at Zebedee. And Lightnite, a Fortnite-like battle royale game from the team at Satoshis Games. Gaming is so hot right now, and there is so much money being made and yet to be made that it is hard to imagine a world in which automatic payouts via the Lightning Network do not come to fruition.

It is only a matter of time.

Final thought...

Drake is trash.