Isabelle Castro

Latest substack is out (whoops I forgot to publish my usual post about it here) This week ive gone deep into international law with @AndyJSTARR of @Startup_States - arriving at the conclusion that governance autonomy may be achieved through a "sovereign sublet" Interested? read it now

Monday morning affirmation: you are loved, you are valued, and you are a 14-digit identifier in 600 databases. Have a great week.

We’re adding Zcash coinholder polling in @zodl_app with the first poll targeted for June. Soon, anyone using Zodl will be able to share their opinion on the direction of the Zcash protocol by voting their coins. The voting protocol will also be available for integration with other shielded ZEC wallets. The draft questions and timetable for the Zcash Network Upgrade 7 (NU7) poll are available here: forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/nu7-sentimen… Thanks to @zkDragon and his team for all their work building and helping us integrate the new voting protocol.

TOTAL SLOP

@gothburz @EU_Commission This is one of my favourite ones yet

YES. Finally. I have been doing this for two years and people kept telling me I was "paranoid" and "destroying relationships." The EU agrees with me now. I printed this meme. It's on my refrigerator. My wife took her magnet back but the tape holds. I started a classification system in March 2024 after my neighbor Dimitris said the bus wasn't running anymore. I recognized it immediately. Hostile narrative. I logged it. Column A: source. Column B: narrative content. Column C: threat level (1-5). Column D: probable state actor origin. Dimitris was a 3. The bus genuinely wasn't running but the FRAMING was suspicious. By August I had 847 entries. My building alone produced 31 classified narratives per month. The woman on the fourth floor mentioned her pension hadn't increased since 2019 — that's a 4. The café owner who closed said "nobody has money anymore" — textbook Category 6, I reported it to the municipality. They didn't have a form for it. I made my own form. I laminated it. My mother called last month and said her electricity bill doubled. I told her she was being weaponized. She said she was being cold. I explained that "being cold" is a narrative frame designed to undermine confidence in European energy policy. She hung up. She's been hanging up more frequently. I've logged that too. Column E: escalation pattern. She's a 2 trending toward 3. My wife said I need to "stop doing this." I asked her who told her to say that. She said her therapist. I asked who funds the therapist. She didn't answer. I've started a new binder. Should I send you the template? I can translate it into all 24 official EU languages. I've already done nine.

The battle of narratives is going strong. Our countries are a recurring target. It is time to act to tell the stories that make us strong. Let’s live our own story! Protect what matters - our democracy.

Biotech startups say potentially world changing therapies have been stunted for decades, blocked by regulation. In my latest podcast I sat down with @mactothefuturex of @MinicircleDNA to talk about how small jurisdictions with innovative policies can help.

🇨🇭 A 31-year-old just conquered 29 acres of Switzerland without spending a single franc, and now declares himself king of the country. No joke. Jonas Lauwiner claimed 148 ownerless plots by simply writing letters to local councils, including 83 stretches of road he now uses to charge maintenance fees to the homeowners who depend on them. "I do it digitally and without bloodshed." The wildest part: this loophole has existed for decades. He's just the first one who bothered to exploit it at scale. Switzerland is now scrambling to close the gap. Source: Daily Mail

speechless

@Rachelwolf00 @consensus2026 What was your impression of Bitcoin 2026?

Honest thoughts on @consensus2026 so far, I’m kinda underwhelmed tbh 😴 #consensus2026

@binji_x Best thing to come back to when its like this

London is BEAUTIFUL right now.

Bitcoin 2026 is underway in Las Vegas Quotes and key insights collected live by the Sandmark editorial team on the ground. We’ll be adding the strongest lines from panels and speakers here as the day progresses. Follow @sandmark_news for full coverage. #Bitcoin2026

The @Sandmark_news team is on the ground at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. Here are some of the strongest quotes from the event so far:

@JacobKinge Yesterday was enterprise day, its supposed to be quieter, it’s kind of the point

BREAKING: The Bitcoin conference saw a record low turnout this year, with only a few dozen attendees. Several speakers also didn’t show, and the event ended 4 hours early.

Jensen Huang says AGI is here. Marc Andreessen says AGI is here. Dario Amodei says it's coming in months. None of them are using the same definition. And every single one of them has billions riding on you believing it. This Thursday, we're asking the question nobody wants to sit with: has AGI actually arrived, or has the finish line just been moved by the people closest to it? Join us live on The Forum Twitter Spaces panel. 🗓️Thursday, April 30th, 2026 🕙 2PM UTC Hosts: - @ArcanumVentures - @BOOMROOMpodcast - @MELOWILD - @IZYcastrowrites - @Utopiainbeta Panelists: - @BitcoinBrooki - @compass_mining - @dersummit - @oortchair - @Human_AIx - @ManoThanabalan - @deeepmoist - @ChangeNOW_io - @ai_robopsy - @salutemichelle - @Robotics4GoodAI - @woof_software

Despite the weird opening, BTC2026 is surprisingly making me feel more optimistic about the future of individual sovereignty

Favourite thing at all of the bitcoin conferences- the artwork

Interesting that at a conference for a currency built to circumvent traditional institutions, the first thing on stage is a national anthem

And we are back!

Companies need to stop adding AI to their search bars

The hardest startup you could ever build is a city. In my latest podcast I sat down with Patri Friedman (@patrissimo) to talk about what it takes to build a city from scratch. As he gears up to launch a brand new online course for aspiring city founders, we discussed the biggest bottlenecks to making a city successful and the most common mistake many founders make in the process. Listen to the full interview now : youtu.be/F-sGyVVAZRo