Malcoholic

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[Craig Raw 🐦 @craigraw]

My attempt to protect users from scam apps on the @AppStore has gotten my Apple Developer account flagged for termination - ironically, for "dishonest activity".

Unless it's reversed by June 30, all new installs of Sparrow Wallet will fail, and development on macOS will end.

The context: since 2023, more than a dozen fake "Sparrow" apps have appeared on the App Store, as recently as April this year. Users have contacted me after losing their savings, in some cases their life savings, to these impersonators.

I'm the developer of the real Sparrow Wallet, a desktop app, and I hold the registered US trademarks for the name and logo. I have publicly warned @Apple and the community about these fake apps from early 2024, but they keep appearing.

The app @Apple flagged was a placeholder that was never published. Its only purpose was to warn users that Sparrow is desktop-only and that other "Sparrow" apps aren't mine. This approach may have been misguided, but there was nothing dishonest about it.

I'm confident this is an automated misclassification that Apple would reverse on review - but I may be terminated before a human ever looks at my appeal. The cost would fall on @Apple's own users: blocked installs and no updates for a tool people rely on, which opens the door for more fakes.

If you value Sparrow, a repost would help. @AppleSupport

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

This chart says "Bitcoin is most owned where it solves very real problems"

The data tells us it is solving a lot of problems, at scale, and often at an existential level

For example for 10 of the top 14 countries adopting Bitcoin, here's the problems it solves

UAE: Remittances
The world's highest-migrant-share workforce sends money home through banks that skim 6%+ a transfer. Bitcoin moves it for a fraction

Vietnam: Bank-account control
The state deactivated 86M+ bank accounts in a single "AML sweep". I personally spoke to people this happened to who lost their savings. They had left Vietnam years before, and found the account that held their money simply closed. A bank that can freeze you for going quiet is the whole argument for holding your own keys.

Philippines: Remittances
Overseas workers wire billions home each year. Bitcoin rails undercut the high-fee operators they are otherwise forced to use.

Iran: Sanctions
Locked out of the dollar system, Iran mines its subsidised energy into Bitcoin and spends it on imports the banks can't touch.

Brazil: Inflation hedge
Brazilians hold Bitcoin as hard money against a currency that keeps losing ground, and as a serious investment asset

Venezuela: Hyperinflation
As the bolivar collapses, Venezuelans move savings into Bitcoin to hold value the state can't erase

El Salvador: Day-to-day transactions
The IMF stripped the legal-tender mandate in 2025, so nobody has to touch Bitcoin. But ~ 1 in 10 Salvadorians still do anyway, by choice. One story that moved me was of a rural Salvadorian who used Bitcoin to pay his utility bill so he didn't have to have a half-day round trip to the nearest bank each month.

Ukraine: War
When ATMs capped withdrawals and savings froze, Bitcoin crossed borders money couldn't, and funded the defence.

Argentina: Inflation.
After decades of a falling peso, Argentines save in Bitcoin to protect what their melting-icecube currency keeps eroding.

South Africa: Hedging the rand.
The rand has devalued 8x against the USD since 2000. A weak, volatile currency and a deep investor base push South Africans into Bitcoin as an alternative asset

Notice the common theme? With the exception of US/Thailand/Saudi (Investment) and Singapore (Zero Capital Gains Tax) all the other countries are using Bitcoin to solve problems that affect basic livelihood in ways most of us struggle to imagine even being necessary in the West.

There is a name for this: "Solipsistic". It means treating one's own experience as the only reality.

(source references for each country and chart reference in comments)

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@saylor bi-curious

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@RunnerXBT https://t.co/pJ7pBriFEp here

[Matt Cole @ColeMacro]

Strive acquired an additional 32 $BTC for ~$2.1M at an average cost of ~$63,911 per bitcoin.

$ASST $SATA

[On-Chain Mind @OnChainMind]

Bitcoin spends 96% of its life below its all-time high.

Almost the entire return is made in the other 4%, in short violent bursts most holders never wait around for.

I explore every drawdown in Bitcoin’s history, and what the data says actually happens next👇🏼

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@IT_Tech_PL Bent over, cheeks spread, that's how

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@Chrissssjohnson That's where you're wrong. I'm 49 actually...

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

Imagine if I said to you "Earth is an uninhabitable place to live"

You look at me sideways and say "What?"

I reply "Planets are awful. Pluto/Uranus/Neptune, you'd freeze. Mercury, you'd burn. Venus, you'd be poisoned. Jupiter and Saturn, you'd be crushed. Mars: nothing to breath.

It's true. Most of the planets, including over 5700 exoplanets, are really really bad places to live.

But the conclusion that this means earth is uninhabitable is obviously a basic logic fail.

Now imagine someone tells you "Bitcoin is a scam"

Again, as someone who has used Bitcoin and understands how Bitcoin works, you say "What?"

They reply "Most crypto has gone to zero. VCs dump on retail. Memecoins are complete rugpulls. Pre-mined tokens, you get diluted to oblivian. ICOs, you're the exit-liquidity for founders and early investors.

It's true. Most of the thousands of cryptocurrencies launched since 2009 have been complete scams.

But again, the conclusion that this makes Bitcoin a scam is equally a basic logic 101 fail.

Earth is the only planet with a breathable atmosphere, the right temperature band, and liquid water.

Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with the combination of no insider enrichment, a fixed supply that nobody can change, and a 17-year unhacked decentralised ledger.

In both cases, some very special and unique features make the general rule inapplicable to the one obvious exception.

This logical fallacy has been around long enough to have a name. Aristotle spotted it about 2,300 years ago and called it the "Fallacy of Accident". You take a pattern that's generally true for a category and force it onto the one member where the evidence clearly shows it doesn't fit.

Other examples of the logic fail :

- No-one I know can run a sub 4-minute mile, therefore Hicham El Guerrouj can't run a four minute mile
- "Drugs are bad" so we should ban prescription medication

A few days ago, Ben McKenzie sat on Jon Stewart's podcast and committed the same logic-fail: citing crypto's failures as his evidence against Bitcoin.

He's not the only one to fail in this way. Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, Jamie Dimon, Christine Lagarde all conflated Bitcoin with all crypto for years. Many journalists still fail to distinguish Bitcoin from all other crypto (though the better ones are starting to).

In fact, this fallacy has been deployed for years with impunity by people who either don't know, or forgot to mention, that Bitcoin has unique features making it materially different from all other crypto

The irony is that Bitcoiners and crypto-critics are on the same page: the rugpulls, the insider enrichment, the tokens engineered to extract value from retail investors are all things that Bitcoiners like @CorySwan and others have been vocally calling out for over a decade, long before category-conflating journalists and actors from teen dramas decided they had an opinion about it.

It's not that hard

Unless you have the attention-span of a gnat-fly, you can easily do 5 mins research (AI-assisted if you really want) and discover either what the core differences are between Earth and all other planets, between Bitcoin and all other crypto.

Earth is an incredibly, uniquely habitable planet for humans to live.

Bitcoin is an incredible, uniquely suitable form of currency for humans to use

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@coinfessions I'm disappointed in you too

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@CalebFranzen your posts are usually condesending in tone i find, which is a shame because i enjoyed the last time i caught you on a podcast. back to mute for now im afraid

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@TradeZella That's it. That's the sentence

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@follis_ and i will pretend i didnt endorse it

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@jaymesrosenthal Nice mate 🙂👌🏻

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@follis_ Nice. Thanks for this

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@SalsaTekila I expect Claude is down on it too

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@SalsaTekila same, also didnt call a tech as im in crypto and too broke

[Malcoholic @Malcoholic5]

@CryptoCred @lBattleRhino or win

[Lilys.ai @LilysAI_]

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[Bram Kanstein @bramk]

Quite possibly a top 5 Bitcoin clip of all-time (I've been in this since 2013)👇

@TomerStrolight:

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

Wow - did you wake up and think it was 2021 this morning?

Respectfully, this is a very outdated take. It is also clear you are commenting well outside your domain expertise and misinforming your followers as a result.

1. Calling Bitcoin a waste of energy is not only non-scientific, but it is a value judgment that shows you are unaware of how Bitcoin is used. It has 19 very important social and environmental benefits - source: ,https://t.co/uXoq4wWEiz

2. Far from wasting energy, the opposite is true. It uses renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted. This was reported on just yesterday. Source: https://t.co/qmLB901vif

3. Bitcoin mining is the only industry in the world that has been demonstrated to use predominantly sustainable energy. Source: https://t.co/kp3iOgqE7k

4. There are 22 peer reviewed journals and 8 independent reports that show significant environmental benefits to bitcoin mining. These include
- mitigating methane
- stabilizing grids
- accelerating renewable energy expansion through monetizing otherwise wasted renewable energy
- obviating the need for expensive, fossil-fuel intensive gas peaker plants.
Source: https://t.co/eoFTC8E3wm

5. The academic opinion piece that resulted in the misconception that "Bitcoin mining wastes a lot of energy" (written by a part time student and Central Bank employee) was debunked in peer reviewed research in 2024 by Sai and Vranken. Source: https://t.co/W1C7g5lwnB

Do better!