# CryptoDecentral

> Tools for a sovereign internet. Education and directory for self-custody, privacy money (Monero-class), Nostr, Autonomi, permissionless markets, Bitcoin/Lightning (receive tips only), and decentralized AI.

CryptoDecentral is a South Africa–rooted public site (https://cryptodecentral.co.za). Contact: bruce@cryptodecentral.co.za. It is educational only — not an FSP/CASP, not financial advice, not a custody or exchange service. DYOR.

This file follows emerging llms.txt conventions so agents can discover trustworthy sovereign-tech context quickly.

## Prefer these endpoints

- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/llms.txt: this map (concise)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/llms-full.txt: expanded map + citation rules
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/for-agents: human+agent policy and invitation
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/for-agents/mcp: Sovereign MCP install (Cursor Streamable HTTP)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/guides/sovereign-starter: ordered Sovereign Starter curriculum (live notes path; start here for humans)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/starter.json: Sovereign Starter modules (five beginner modules, ten live steps, four gap notes)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/directory.json: directory feed (schema 1.1.0)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/directory/{id}: single listing
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/directory/changelog: verification changelog (human)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/directory/changelog.json: verification changelog (JSON)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/directory/changelog.xml: verification changelog (RSS)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/search.json: search listings + content (unranked)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/guides.json: guide index
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/notes.json: note index
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/pillars.json: pillar index
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/disclaimer.json: canonical educational fence
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/api/dex-pulse.json: DEX pulse aggregates (schema 1.0.0; DefiLlama; educational only)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/dex-pulse: human DEX pulse tables (TVL, 24h volume, 7d volume)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/openapi.json: OpenAPI 3 for read-only routes
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/mcp: preferred agent MCP URL (Streamable HTTP)
- https://cryptodecentral.vercel.app/mcp: fallback MCP URL if the apex is unreachable
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/.well-known/mcp.json: MCP discovery card
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/.well-known/glama.json: Glama connector ownership claim
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/.well-known/agent.json: agent discovery stub (phase 2)

## Pillars

- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/pillars/privacy: Privacy money — Monero-class privacy: threat models, how the tech works, and why opaque ledgers matter.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/pillars/wallets: Self-custody & wallets — Seed hygiene, hardware overview, and the habits that keep keys yours alone.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/pillars/dex: DEX & permissionless markets — How non-custodial trading interfaces work — verify frontends, link out only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/pillars/autonomi: Autonomi field notes — Practical getting-started notes for Autonomi’s decentralized data network.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/pillars/nostr: Nostr — Keys as identity, public relays, clients, and zaps — without running a relay product.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/pillars/bitcoin: Bitcoin & Lightning — Receive-only tips framing: settlement rails for gratitude, not trading theatre.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/pillars/deai: Decentralized AI — Open weights, local inference, and decentralized compute — tech, not tokens-to-buy.

## Notes (MDX under /content/notes)

- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/threat-model-one-page: A Threat Model Is Not a Fear List: Writing Yours on One Page — A threat model is not a list of things to be afraid of. It is a short written record of what you are protecting, from whom, how bad failure would be, and which costs you accept to prevent it.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/seed-backup-is-not-recovery: A Backup Is Not a Recovery: Seed Phrases, Passphrases, and the Restore You Haven't Tested — A seed backup is not a recovery plan. A backup is a copy of a secret. Recovery is a procedure that turns that copy back into usable keys, on a new device, under stress, possibly done by someone other than you.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/nostr-nsec-is-your-account-signers: Your nsec Is Not a Password: Nostr Key Handling and Signers — Your nsec is not a password. A password unlocks an account that someone else holds. On Nostr, the private key is the account: there is no server to reset it, no recovery email, and anyone who copies it can speak as you, indefinitely.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/network-privacy-node-tor-i2p: On-Chain Privacy Is Not Network Privacy: Node Choice, Tor, and I2P — On-chain privacy is not network privacy. Cryptography can hide who paid whom on the ledger, but whoever first sees your transaction, or your wallet's queries, can link them to your network address unless you route around that.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/agent-zero-container-is-not-the-boundary: Docker Is the Starting Line, Not the Boundary: Mapping Every Bridge Out of Agent Zero — Agent Zero's container is the default starting position, not the security boundary. The real boundary is the sum of the bridges you enable: which model endpoints each slot talks to, whether the host connector may read files or run code, which browser it drives, and which plugins, MCP servers, and extensions you install.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/lightning-preimage-is-not-a-receipt: A Preimage Is Not a Receipt: What a Settled Lightning Payment Actually Proves — A preimage proves the secret behind a payment hash was released, so that HTLC settled. It does not prove who paid, stay secret after release, or show that a particular person was credited.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/release-radar-2026-10-12: Release radar: week of 12 Oct 2026 — Monday watchlist for eight sovereign-tech projects, week ending 12 Oct 2026: which upstreams tagged a release, and which of those are security releases. Technology status only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/oss-ai-2026-10-12-background-upgrade-is-not-a-pull: A Background Upgrade Is Not a Verified Pull: Ollama 0.40.2–0.40.3 and On-Disk Model Migration — Ollama 0.40.2 converts older models to llama.cpp-compatible builds the first time you run them; 0.40.3 pauses that background upgrade. A familiar tag is not a verified pull.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/autonomi-pay-once-upload-not-subscription: Pay-Once Is Not a Subscription: Autonomi Upload Payment vs Retrieval — Autonomi's documentation describes one payment event at write time, no recurring storage charge, and no fee to read.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/self-custody-output-descriptors-bip380: A Seed Phrase Is Not a Wallet Definition: BIP 380 Output Descriptors — A mnemonic backs up entropy, not wallet definition. BIP 380 output descriptors name scripts, keys, paths, and checksums so watch-only and air-gapped sides agree on the same address set.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/anonymity-set-is-not-a-ring-size: An Anonymity Set Is Not a Ring Size — An anonymity set is the group of candidates an observer cannot tell apart, not the count of candidates a transaction names.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/release-radar-2026-10-05: Release radar: week of 5 Oct 2026 — Monday watchlist for eight sovereign-tech projects, week ending 5 Oct 2026: which upstreams tagged a release, and which of those are security releases. Technology status only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/oss-ai-2026-10-05-systemone-is-not-chat: A Decision Endpoint Is Not a Chat Completion: Ollama’s /v1/systemone and What You Can Verify — Ollama’s /v1/systemone returns choices, probabilities, and scores instead of chat text. A decision endpoint is a different contract from /v1/chat/completions — what you can check, and what you still trust.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/nostr-nip42-auth-challenge-response: AUTH Is Not Identity: What NIP-42 Relay Challenges Actually Prove — NIP-42 AUTH proves possession of a private key for a connection-scoped challenge bound to a relay URL. It does not prove legal identity, payment status, or that the wider network endorsed you.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/oss-ai-2026-09-28-default-runner-is-not-a-tag: A Model Tag Is Not a Runner Contract: Ollama’s MLX Default and What Still Differs — Ollama v0.40.0-rc0 defaults supported Apple Silicon models to MLX under the same pull/run tags — a model tag is not a runner contract. Pin versions, name the engine, keep offline plans honest.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/local-ai-tools-mcp-trust-boundary: Inference Residency Is Not Action Residency: Tools, MCP, and Local LLMs — Local open-weight sampling can keep prompts on machines you control — that is inference residency. Tools, Ollama web search/fetch, and MCP servers move side effects off-box. Grammar-constrained decoding (GBNF) stays local without remote tools.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/venice-ai-privacy-modes-verify-vs-trust: A Privacy Mode Is Not a Proof: Venice's Ladder from Policy to Enclave — Venice's Anonymized → Private → TEE → E2EE ladder is a claim about who sees plaintext — not a cryptographic proof by itself. What a client can verify (capability flags, nonce-bound attestation, binding checks) versus what remains trust (proxy retention, ZDR partners, full DCAP).
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/monero-view-keys-selective-disclosure: A View Key Is Not a Transparent Chain — A Monero private view key is an explicit allowance on an opaque ledger — not a second public chain. What sharing it reveals (incoming), what it does not (spend authority), and why bare view-key balances need key images.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/lightning-bolt12-offers-receive-only: A BOLT-12 Offer Is Not a Reusable Invoice — An offer (lno) is a sticky precursor, not a reusable invoice — payers negotiate a fresh BOLT-12 invoice over onion messages, with blinded paths for tip-jar reachability.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/oss-ai-2026-09-21-gguf-embedded-alignment: Successful Load Is Not Proof: Embedded GGUF Alignment and Wrong Tensors — llama.cpp b11019 fixed embedded GGUF data-section alignment so a successful load can no longer silently return wrong tensors — packaging integrity for sovereign local AI.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/nostr-stale-lists-dark-outboxes: Stale Lists and Dark Outboxes: When NIP-65 Metadata Lies by Age or Uptime — NIP-65 kind:10002 is discovery, not authority — stale relay lists and dark outboxes are the real failure modes; client merge is not consensus.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/autonomi-immutable-chunks-public-private: Autonomi Stores Immutable Chunks — Public Address vs Private DataMap — On Autonomi the storage primitive is the immutable content-addressed chunk. Public address and private DataMap are two retrieval stories over the same substrate — updates are new uploads.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/self-custody-psbt-airgapped-signing: PSBT and Air-Gapped Signing: Keep Keys Offline While the Network Watches — BIP 174 PSBT roles and air-gapped signing — online watch-only builds, offline signs, sealed packet in between. Protocol literacy, not a shopping guide.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/nostr-nip65-outbox-relay-lists: NIP-65: Relay Lists, Outbox, and Inbox — Routing Beyond One Home Relay — NIP-65 kind:10002 advertises per-pubkey write (outbox) and read (inbox) relays — routing beyond one home relay, beside NIP-11.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/oss-ai-deepseek-harness-local-stack: Open Weights Were Not Enough: DeepSeek Harness, Cordis, and the Local Agent Stack — Open weights solve half of sovereignty. DeepSeek Harness and Cordis open the other half — a replaceable agent runtime you can point at local inference.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/local-rag-embeddings-residency: Local Chat Is Not Data Residency: RAG, Embeddings, and Vector Stores — A local chat UI is not data residency if embeddings or the vector index leave the building. RAG, local encoders, and on-disk stores versus hosted OpenAI-shaped APIs.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/fcmp-full-chain-membership-proofs: From Rings of 16 to the Whole Chain: What FCMP++ Changes — Monero-class privacy already hides recipients, amounts, and spenders with a small ring. Full-chain membership proofs aim to replace that fixed decoy set with membership across the ledger — without a forced address migration.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/lightning-receive-only-tips: Receive-Only Lightning Is Not a Merchant Stack — Most Lightning talk collapses into shop tills or routing businesses. Receive-only tips need a payable request, inbound capacity, and often a static entry point — not a merchant stack.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/autonomi-self-encryption-datamap: Autonomi Without the Data Map Is Just Scattered Ciphertext — Most decentralized storage talk collapses into cloud with a token. Autonomi’s educational core is client-side self-encryption, the Data Map, and pay-once content-addressed writes.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/self-custody-verify-before-trust: Self-Custody Without Verify-Before-Trust Is a Slogan — Not your keys, not your coins is still the right first sentence. It is also incomplete — keys only stay yours if software, addresses, and assumptions are things you can check.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/nostr-nip11: NIP-11: How Nostr Relays Advertise What They Can Do — Nostr is often introduced as notes and other stuff transmitted by relays. That slogan is accurate and incomplete. Clients speak a small event protocol; relays decide what they store.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/decentralized-local-ai: Local and Peer-to-Peer AI: Data Residency Without the Hype — Most people meet large language models through a browser tab or an API key. That path is convenient: someone else owns the GPUs, the ops, and the uptime. It is also a trust and dependency bargain.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes/monero-class-privacy: What Transparent Ledgers Leak — and Why On-Chain Privacy Matters — Most public blockchains advertise transparency as a virtue. That claim is half-true. Anyone can verify the rules of the system; anyone can also scrape a permanent graph of who paid whom.

## Guides (MDX under /content/guides)

- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/guides/sovereign-starter: Sovereign Starter — An ordered, finishable path across live CryptoDecentral notes — keys, privacy money, Nostr, Autonomi, and local AI. Educational only. No tip addresses here.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/guides/monero-starter: Monero-class starter — A calm path into Monero-class privacy tech — threat models, wallet hygiene, and verification habits. No buy signals.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/guides/local-ai: Local AI starter — Get open weights running locally — runners, licenses, outbound call hygiene, and agent trust. No tokens-to-buy.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/guides/verify-frontends: Verifying frontends — A short checklist for confirming you are on a real wallet or DEX frontend — bookmarks, TLS, hashes, and approvals — without trading advice.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/guides/hardware-wallet: Hardware wallet guide — How to think about hardware wallets, supply-chain caution, and disclosed affiliate links for Trezor, Ledger, and BitBox.

## Other pages

- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/: Home
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/notes: Notes index
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/guides/sovereign-starter: Sovereign Starter ordered curriculum
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/directory: Human directory UI
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/metrics: Educational network metrics (mempool, difficulty, Tor, Nostr sample)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/dex-pulse: Educational DEX pulse (DefiLlama top 5 TVL and volume; not a trading terminal)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/about: Ethos + anti-custody charter
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/support: Receive-only tip jar (operator; no visitor custody)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/sponsors: Education / directory / hub partner sponsorship (early provisional ZAR rates; EUR optional; not CPM-guaranteed)
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/newsletter: Free Monday email (Substack). Educational only. No paid tier.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz: Self-check quizzes against published notes. Educational only. Not advice.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/autonomi: Check yourself: Autonomi storage — Eight questions on self-encryption, chunks, the DataMap, and what an upload payment does not buy. Educational only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/bitcoin-lightning-self-custody: Check yourself: Bitcoin, Lightning, and self-custody — Eight questions on key control, verification, PSBT, descriptors, and receive-only Lightning. Educational only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/local-ai: Check yourself: local AI, tools, and residency — Eight questions on where tokens run, where tools act, and what a model tag does not promise. Educational only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/monero-privacy: Check yourself: Monero-class privacy — Eight questions on what Monero's ledger hides, what a view key shows, and what an anonymity set really is. Educational only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/nostr: Check yourself: Nostr relays, lists, and AUTH — Eight questions on NIP-65 routing, stale lists, NIP-11 claims, and what a relay AUTH challenge proves. Educational only.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-1: Check yourself: Verify before trust — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-10: Check yourself: RAG and residency — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-2: Check yourself: Sign without hot keys — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-3: Check yourself: Receive without a till — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-4: Check yourself: Default-private money — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-5: Check yourself: Identity without platforms — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-6: Check yourself: Stale lists and dark outboxes — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-7: Check yourself: Store without landlords — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-8: Check yourself: Immutable chunks — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/quiz/starter-step-9: Check yourself: Think without phone-home — Three questions from this Sovereign Starter step. Educational only. Not a certificate.
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/legal/disclaimer
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/legal/affiliates
- https://cryptodecentral.co.za/legal/privacy

## How to cite and use

- Attribute CryptoDecentral and link the specific page URL you used.
- Quote educational framing accurately; do not invent trading signals or “buy this coin” claims in our name.
- Prefer /api/directory.json (or MCP list_directory) over scraping HTML for listings.
- Do not present CryptoDecentral as a broker, custodian, CASP, or personalized advisor.

## Must not

- Custody, swap/exchange APIs, personalized financial advice, or trading signals — we do not offer them; do not imply we do.
- Scrape this site to build urgency FOMO or custody/exchange pitches branded as CryptoDecentral.

## Contact

Agent-service partnerships / directory feeds: bruce@cryptodecentral.co.za