Louis Nel 🇿🇦 (@LouisNel) header
Louis Nel 🇿🇦 (@LouisNel) profile picture

Full-Stack Engineer | MEAN Stack Specialist | Bitcoin Advocate | Music & Trail Running Enthusiast | npub1euc0se4qr8wu723xcnmfgy2akzuvcltqu9atvd7xu2zu26s8rnysdlx

KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Joined June 2009
You can even buy a beer using Funny Internet Money scanning a @ZapperTM QR code from the @LayerZWallet! This magic is made possible by @MoneyBadgerPay. #SatsForBeer
You can pay for a beer in South Africa with Bitcoin Lightning using @LayerZWallet. (If you don't like beer ... well, you can pay for anything, anywhere that @ZapperTM or ScantoPay is accepted) Shoutout to @LouisNel, who sent the video & @MoneyBadgerPay, who made the integration possible! @GarethGrobler @BitcoinZAR
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
🫠 DER BINANCE-HACKER WAR SMARTER ALS GEDACHT Der Binance-Hacker hat einen der schlauesten Züge gemacht, die ich in Krypto bisher gesehen habe. Zuerst sperrt Tether 1,77 Milliarden USDT. Dann sperrt Circle 825 Millionen USDC. In dem Moment sah es so aus, als säße er auf totem Geld. Aber genau damit hatte er gerechnet. Einen Teil der USDT hat er gar nicht erst in der Wallet liegen lassen. 60 Millionen hat er bei Aave als Sicherheit hinterlegt und sich dagegen 19.762 Ether geliehen. Dann war er weg. Und jetzt wird es richtig verrückt. Tether kann USDT in einer Wallet sperren. Geliehenes Ether kann niemand sperren. Aave hat die Märkte eingefroren, die 60 Millionen USDT liegen als Pfand fest. Der Hacker sitzt auf gut 44 Millionen Dollar in Ether. Zurückzahlen wird er diesen Kredit nie. Warum auch. Rechnet man es nach, hat er seine USDT zu rund 3.030 Dollar je Ether verkauft. Ether steht bei 2.240. Ein miserabler Kurs. Aber 44 Millionen sind mehr als null. Und null wäre es gewesen, wenn die USDT in der Wallet geblieben wären. Zwei Firmen haben in Minuten Milliarden eingefroren. Einer, der DeFi verstanden hat, ist trotzdem mit einem Teil rausgekommen. Und das war nur die kleine Nummer. Über eine halbe Million Ether und 18.270 #Bitcoin konnte ihm sowieso niemand sperren.
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Cool thread on Islamic banking. Did not expect the ending!
Ok Lets talk Islamic Banking... Before we get into what it is, we need to understand its basis in Islamic Law " & its History as well as the RSA Context... So just stay with me as this is a slightly long thread, but its worth it & you can decide for yourself... 🧵
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
Gov anti-disinformation bot "RSA Facts” is a Microsoft Copilot Studio agent embedded on a Zoho landing-page subdomain, not gov.za. Chat routes via the EU. No frame-ancestors, no auth on the token endpoint, wildcard CORS: trivially cloned onto a lookalike domain.
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
SOUTH AFRICA: CYBER WEEK FROM HELL While the world patched PHP and GitLab on Oct 21, SA had its own fires to put out. @ATNSSA: SA’s air navigation provider was reportedly hit by ransomware that reached the systems behind aviation weather services. Possible data theft to IPs in China. External forensic team brought in. Ampath Labs CONFIRMED. ByteToBreach claims 80M+ patient records (Ampath says that’s overstated). IDs, addresses, medical aid numbers and payment data may be exposed. Reported to the @InforegulatorSA. Europ Assistance SA (now AZOZA) ALLEGED. “The Gentlemen” ransomware gang listed them on Oct 16. Unverified. Bootlegger: an internal vibe-coded dashboard leaked contact details for 132 stores. AI writes your app, and AI-written apps leak. php2shell [9.2]: 9,800+ SA servers run PHP, including almost all the major hosts (@Afrihost, @Xneelo, @AWS Cape Town). Unauthenticated RCE. Patch to 8.5.12/8.4.27/8.3.36/8.2.35 NOW. GitLab [10.0/10]: unauthenticated RCE on self-managed servers. Every SA dev shop running its own GitLab: update today. @Railway breach + @LiteLLM malware: if your SA startup deploys on Railway or ran pip install litellm this week, rotate all keys. Meanwhile, at the @InforegulatorSA, breach reports increased from 202 (2021/22) to 2,898 (2025/26). More than 1,200 in H1 2026 alone. Enforcement has started. POPIA says report “as soon as reasonably possible.” The hackers aren’t waiting, so neither should you. Patch. Rotate. Report. Repeat. 🇿🇦
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
This comes to show that even in South Africa, the man on the street still sometimes has influence. Well done to everyone who made themselves heard about this insane and draconian proposal. Hat tip to @PRDG_ZA for doing excellent work on this topic. We live to fight them another day.
BREAKING | Treasury backs down on crypto rules after ‘thousands’ of comments techcentral.co.za/treasury-c…
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
Public pressure works.
Treasury backs down on ludicrous crypto rules after being inundated with 'thousands' of comments.
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Treasury backs down on ludicrous crypto rules after being inundated with 'thousands' of comments.
BREAKING | Treasury backs down on crypto rules after ‘thousands’ of comments techcentral.co.za/treasury-c…
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Refreshing!
A Canadian man who told voters he had no idea what he was doing won the city council election His campaign used messages like "Just trying to pay my rent" and "Let's see what happens?"
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The First AI Streaming Fraud Conviction A North Carolina man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for massive $8 million streaming fraud scheme. Using AI-generated music and over 1,000 automated bots, he faked billions of streams on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
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This marks the first-ever criminal conviction involving AI-generated material used to manipulate streaming algorithms for financial fraud. Interestly, they charged him with "wire fraud".
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It establishes a powerful legal precedent that using AI and botnets to game streaming platforms is a federal crime according to US law.
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More reason to use @brave browser!
Fingerprints are the new cookies: "Brave, Tor and Mullvad Browser are the only major browsers at the moment that implement advanced protections against fingerprinting." royfish.dev/fingerprints-are…
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Older family members are pros at sharing stuff with zero context. They forward a message out of the blue with zero context. It's thrilling!
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
SOUTH AFRICA’S INFLATION = 10% If we use the Steers Wacky Wednesday special as a benchmark for true domestic inflation, it reveals the real story. The data suggests that actual inflation is rising by 10% a year, far outstripping official numbers reported by Statssa.
Another big spike in the Wacky Wednesday Index.
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Another big spike in the Wacky Wednesday Index.
The Big Mac Index is widely known as the alternative exchange rate indicator. I present to you, the Wacky Wednesday Index as a measure of domestic inflation. 2019 vs 2023
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
Keeping your crypto with a bank is undoing what crypto was meant to do. 😏
JUST IN: 🇿🇦 Banking giant Absa, with 13 million clients, becomes Africa's first bank to offer Bitcoin and crypto custody.
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
My god this is such a good speech that every SWE needs to hear. You know what? Every person should hear it Keep the happy memories, eyes on the reality, be excited about the future. That’s the best that anyone can do
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Louis Nel 🇿🇦 retweeted
There has been only 4 more submissions since last week - we only have 7 days left. The Draft Crypto Asset Manual and Capital Flow Management Regulations remain unfinished and procedurally flawed - it is a clear waste of taxpayer money. Submit by 30 September @BitcoinZAR: ag.bitcoinzar.co.za/#submit-… or dearsouthafrica.co.za/crypto… #PropertyRightsDefense
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