Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Core vs. Bitcoin Knots: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Let’s look at two things that Bitcoin Knots users claim to be proponents of and champions for in their crusade against Bitcoin Core: 

• Mining decentralization
• Bitcoin’s use as money

They claim to fight for mining decentralization, with OCEAN mining pool held out as a primary example of this. OCEAN’s DATUM protocol is ostensibly designed to further mining decentralization, specifically the actual template construction process that decides what transactions go into a block. 

They also claim to fight for Bitcoin’s use as a monetary network, i.e. a network that facilitates the transmission of bitcoin in economics transactions, ensuring security for those transactions. 

These are both incredibly important goals. Bitcoin’s mining network remaining decentralized is absolutely critical in order to maintain its censorship resistance. A clear majority of miners must exist and operate in a state free from the possibility of coercion from the state (or any other party) to engage in censorship. Without existing in this state, a simple majority of miners coerced in such a fashion would be capable of perpetually preventing any transaction from confirming in the blockchain, completely undermining Bitcoin’s core value proposition. 

Scaling Bitcoin’s use as money is also incredibly important. The only mechanisms to transact with bitcoin in a censorship resistant fashion are ones that are truly anchored to the blockchain itself in a manner where the end user can on their own enforce ownership of their current balance of bitcoin. 

Both of these things are absolutely necessary for Bitcoin to meaningfully contribute to any positive change in the world. 

So let’s look at what they claim to stand for versus what they are actually doing. 

Actions Versus Words

So firstly, developers have been working on a protocol called Stratum v2, a replacement for the current Stratum v1 protocol miners use to interact with mining pools. This has been a massive project, all completely open source, to allow individual miners to select transactions that are included in blocks themselves as opposed to the pool operator (the pool still controls payouts). 

Block’s new Proto mining rig supports Stratum v2, Braiins Pool and DMND Pool have integrated support. 

What did OCEAN (run by the largest Knots supporters) do to support Stratum v2? Nothing. They created their own proprietary alternative DATUM (they have pledged to open source everything in future but have not yet done so). In both solutions the pool operator is capable of rejecting proposed blocks from individual miners, which would leave the miner continuing to do work they are not getting paid for. Stratum v2 supports immediately switching to another pool in such a case to ensure the miner continues getting paid, OCEAN does not. It simply defaults to solomining. 

Given that it is not even open sourced yet, no other pool can adopt it. It is essentially a vendor lockin for OCEAN pool, who can still reject any template a miner proposes, with no way to trivially opt out if a miner’s block template is rejected and switch to another pool. 

To top it off, the practice of filtering transactions slows down the propagation of blocks across the network. When a miner finds a block, they don’t relay the whole block, they relay the header with a compressed “list” of all the transactions in it for a node to reconstruct and verify the block with the transactions in their mempool. When nodes do not have those transactions, it takes longer for them to fetch them from peers, validate the block, and relay it onward.

This disproportionately hurts smaller miners. If a large pool has a block orphaned because of this, i.e. another miner finds a block before the other one propagates across the network, that larger miner has a very high chance of finding the next block building on their orphan, thus “saving it” to be included in the blockchain. 

Smaller miners do not have those high odds of finding the next block in this situation. This disadvantages them, making the highest fee paying transactions something that could actually lose them money, as opposed to larger miners who will likely find the next block and not have their first one orphaned. 

In multiple ways OCEAN (and Knots supporters) are actively harming mining decentralization while proclaiming themselves defenders of it. 

Now let’s look at the use of Bitcoin as money. Ephemeral anchors are an optimization to make Lightning function more efficiently, for a deeper explanation of them you can read this, but the important point is they allow Lightning users to be much more efficient with fees they pay to close channels on-chain. 

The latest release of Knots by default filters these transactions, and will not relay them across the network. When a Lightning user has to non-cooperatively close, they are doing so in order to protect their funds. Lightning implementations are all in different phases of shifting over to using them. Knots actively attempts to prevent these transactions relaying to miners. 

How does that help advance the use of Bitcoin as money? Again, just like with mining decentralization, they act in a complete opposite manner than what they say. Citrea is yet another example, a Bitcoin Layer 2 designed to scale financial transactions. The Knots OP_RETURN filter will not relay the transactions needed to enforce correct operation of the Layer 2. 

What They Do Matters, Not What They Say

Knots supporters proclaim themselves defenders of Bitcoin, here to ensure it remains a decentralized censorship resistant money. But their actions push towards the exact opposite goal. 

The things they do to “champion” mining decentralization actually create dynamics that worsen its centralization. 

While proclaiming Bitcoin is money, and defending its use as such their chief goal, the software they release and run actively undermines multiple Layer 2s whose entire purpose is to scale Bitcoin’s use as money. 

They are literally fully engaged in a campaign with the end goal of preventing certain kinds of Bitcoin transactions from being made, while proclaiming themselves defenders of Bitcoin. 

At the end of the day, this is an open network, and people can run whatever software they want to interact with that open network. That is a critical and important aspect of Bitcoin. This is not about software, this is about people. 

This is about the stated goals, the stated values of people in this space, being the complete opposite of the actions they engage in. I hope that Bitcoiners are smart enough to eventually see the Orwellian newspeak that has been dominating the entire dispute around Bitcoin Core and Knots over the last few years. 

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

This post Bitcoin Core vs. Bitcoin Knots: Actions Speak Louder Than Words first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Shinobi.

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Tether In Talks To Raise $20 Billion — But What Does That Mean for Bitcoin?

Tether Holdings SA, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, is reportedly in talks with investors to raise as much as $20 billion in new capital, a deal that could propel the firm into the ranks of the world’s most valuable private companies.

According to people familiar with the discussions, Tether is seeking between $15 billion and $20 billion in exchange for roughly a 3% stake through a private placement. 

That would imply a valuation near $500 billion, putting the company in the same league as SpaceX and OpenAI. 

Talks remain in the early stages and details may shift before any deal closes, according to Bloomberg reporting.

Cantor Fitzgerald is said to be advising on the transaction, which would involve new equity rather than existing shareholders selling their stakes. 

Tether and Bitcoin’s relationship

The fundraising effort comes as Tether has steadily expanded beyond stablecoin issuance, building itself into a broader reserve-backed financial powerhouse.

Earlier this year, CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that Tether now holds over 100,000 BTC — worth more than $11 billion — alongside more than 50 tons of gold as part of its reserves.

Those holdings make Tether one of the largest corporate owners of Bitcoin globally, a fact that further ties the fate of its business to the world’s leading digital asset.

Earlier this year, the company also began minting its stablecoin on the Bitcoin Lightning Network. 

Tether announced it will launch its stablecoin on RGB, a next-generation protocol that enables native stablecoin issuance directly on Bitcoin. This move made Tether more Bitcoin-native, underscoring its bet on Bitcoin as the base for everyday global money.

The company has reaped massive profits by investing its reserves into U.S. Treasuries and other cash-like instruments, booking $4.9 billion in profit during the second quarter alone. 

Ardoino has claimed Tether operates with a 99% profit margin — figures that, while unaudited by public market standards, highlight the firm’s cash-generation engine.

Tether already holds over 100,000 BTC and is moving to issue stablecoins directly on Bitcoin. A successful raise would tie its future even closer to Bitcoin, making BTC the backbone of one of the world’s most valuable private companies.

This post Tether In Talks To Raise $20 Billion — But What Does That Mean for Bitcoin? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Federal Reserve Rate Cut Fails to Lift Bitcoin Price Past $118,000

Bitcoin Price Weekly Outlook

Bitcoin price closed last week at $115,333, rejecting the $118,000 resistance level. After three straight weeks of gains, Bitcoin bulls finally lost steam — and the Fed’s rate cut wasn’t enough to break $118,000.

The U.S. Federal Reserve cut the key interest rate by 25 basis points as anticipated, which provided a boost for markets to close out the week, but it wasn’t enough. Bitcoin price made a move to $118,000 on Thursday after the Fed’s announcement, but was pushed back just shy of this critical resistance level. Sunday’s close gave us a shooting star doji candle for the week, signaling a likely reversal in price action heading into this week. The bears have finally stepped in to limit bitcoin’s gains after a 3-week rally by the bulls. We may see some renewed strength by the bears this week as they attempt to push the price down to test the recent support levels.

Key Support and Resistance Levels Now

Looking downward, we are eyeing the $111,300 level as a potential support level. Bitcoin nearly hit that support level already after the big sell-off Sunday night. Below a bitcoin price of $111,300, we will once again look to the 21 EMA, which is currently at $109,500, entering this week. If the price closes below the 21 EMA, it is unlikely the $107,000 low will hold, and we should look to the $105,000 level to act as support.

Price crashed straight through the $113,800 support level on Sunday night, but we will look for bitcoin to close above this level to give some renewed strength to the bulls this week. The next resistance level above here is $115,500. If we can manage to establish these levels as support, we will look to make another attempt at the critical $118,000 resistance level.

Outlook For This Week

Bitcoin saw a massive sell-off just after the weekly close on Sunday night, which brought the bitcoin price all the way down to $111,800.

There are two ways to view this action. Rapid price corrections like this often occur in bullish environments, so it is possible the low this week is already in, and we could expect to see more bullish price action through the remainder of this week. The other possibility is that this is just the beginning of a renewed downtrend, in which case we would anticipate a slight bounce from the lows over the next day or so, followed by continued bearish price action to close out the week. So, to maintain bullish bias this week, we want to see price regain the $113,800 level, while the bears will attempt to push price down past the $111,300 support level to maintain bearish bias.

Market mood: Bearish — after rejecting $118,000 with a shooting-star doji candle, the bears are back in control for the time being.

The Next Few Weeks

Expanding our view on bitcoin price action into the next few weeks, we will look to establish a higher low on the weekly chart. If we can get any type of reversal before the price gets down to the $107,000 low, the bulls will get this higher low and will look to take over once again from the bears.

The MACD oscillator is still in a slightly bearish position after crossing bearish at the end of August. This should assist the bears in keeping the price subdued while it is in place. Bulls will be looking for the MACD to cross back bullish in the coming weeks to give them a bit more strength and help to overcome the $118,000 resistance level.

Terminology Guide:

Bulls/Bullish: Buyers or investors expecting the price to go higher.

Bears/Bearish: Sellers or investors expecting the price to go lower.

Support or support level: A level at which the price should hold for the asset, at least initially. The more touches on support, the weaker it gets and the more likely it is to fail to hold the price.

Resistance or resistance level: Opposite of support. The level that is likely to reject the price, at least initially. The more touches at resistance, the weaker it gets and the more likely it is to fail to hold back the price.

EMA: Exponential Moving Average. A moving average that applies more weight to recent prices than earlier prices, reducing the lag of the moving average.

Oscillators: Technical indicators that vary over time, but typically remain within a band between set levels. Thus, they oscillate between a low level (typically representing oversold conditions) and a high level (typically representing overbought conditions). E.G., Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Moving Average Convergence-Divergence (MACD).

MACD Oscillator: Moving Average Convergence-Divergence is a momentum oscillator that subtracts the difference between two moving averages to indicate trend as well as momentum.

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This post Federal Reserve Rate Cut Fails to Lift Bitcoin Price Past $118,000 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Ethan Greene – Feral Analysis.

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Lawmakers Push SEC to Adopt Trump’s 401(k) Crypto Plan — Is Bitcoin Retirement Coming?

A coalition of House Republicans are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to swiftly implement President Trump’s recent executive order that could allow millions of Americans to gain exposure to Bitcoin and other alternative assets through their 401(k) retirement accounts.

Executive Order 14330, signed on August 7, directs the SEC and Department of Labor (DOL) to update regulations so that retirement savers can diversify beyond the narrow confines of traditional stocks and bonds. 

The policy explicitly backs the idea that “every American preparing for retirement should have access to funds that include investments in alternative assets” where plan fiduciaries deem it appropriate. 

In other words, for everyday savers, the order could mean finally having the freedom to put part of their hard-earned retirement money into assets they believe in — including Bitcoin.

House Lawmakers Push for Retirement Bitcoin

In a letter to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, Chairman French Hill, Rep. Ann Wagner, and seven other lawmakers praised Trump’s order for the potential to democratize investing. 

They urged regulators to revise existing guidance that currently blocks roughly 90 million Americans from allocating to asset classes long reserved for the wealthy.

“Given these directives, we encourage the SEC to provide swift assistance to the Secretary of Labor and to make any necessary revisions to its current regulations and guidance,” the letter stated. “We also request the SEC review bipartisan legislation being advanced in the 119th Congress concerning accredited investors. We are hopeful that such actions will help the 90 million Americans that are currently restricted from investing in alternative assets to secure a dignified, comfortable retirement.”

While “alternative assets” broadly include private equity and venture capital, the order also creates a potential regulatory pathway for Bitcoin exposure inside tax-advantaged retirement plans. 

Several committee members, including Rep. Warren Davidson, have been vocal advocates for adding Bitcoin into existing mainstream financial infrastructures, framing it as both a hedge against monetary debasement and a tool for long-term savings.

The lawmakers also pointed to bipartisan legislation advancing in the 119th Congress that would modernize the definition of “accredited investor,” another longstanding hurdle preventing ordinary Americans from accessing private markets and digital assets.

If carried through, the executive order could mark a watershed moment for Bitcoin adoption in the United States. 

For decades, Americans saving for retirement have had little choice but to hold assets denominated in fiat currency — a system that, by design, loses purchasing power over time. Opening 401(k) plans to Bitcoin would offer savers a way to directly align their long-term wealth with a provably scarce, non-sovereign asset.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins is slated to appear on Fox Business tomorrow, where he may address the executive order and its implications for retirement savers.

This post Lawmakers Push SEC to Adopt Trump’s 401(k) Crypto Plan — Is Bitcoin Retirement Coming? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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A Response to Sir Tim Berners-Lee: We Can Fix the Web Without Regulation

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, computer scientist, inventor of the web and an all-round good guy, wrote some words in The Evening Standard earlier this week, arguing that polarization, conspiracy and mental health crises online stem from design flaws that must be corrected — even if that requires regulation. 

The piece draws directly from chapter 13, “Design Issues,” of his recently released book “This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web,” which I encourage everyone to read.

I agree with Berners-Lee’s diagnosis. But regulation is not the cure. The web’s decline is not merely a design failure; it is also an economic one. Design choices follow incentives, and those incentives have been distorted by fiat money and the advertising model it props up. Cheap credit from the fiat-fuelled venture capital system pushed Silicon Valley away from hacker-led engineering and toward surveillance-driven profit extraction.

To fix the web, we need open source protocols and open source money. 

The internet can be fixed without regulation. But we cannot engineer a solution while ignoring the monetary headwinds that shape design. The economic system — quarterly shareholder primacy and fiat inflation — pressures companies to prioritize engagement, outrage and surveillance advertising. Bitcoin changes this equation. It removes inflationary pressure, potentially breaks the ad model by enabling new forms of monetization that align with user interests rather than exploit them. Combined with open protocols, Bitcoin is the enabler of a freer, more ethical web.

What Went Wrong With World Wide Web

Berners-Lee highlights two main symptoms: polarization and mental health damage. He’s right. 

1. Polarization and Collapse of Shared Reality 

Berners-Lee says:
“The most egregious symptom is polarisation. Social media, as currently built, leads users to take extreme political positions and demonise the opposing side. This makes constructive engagement difficult, allows outlandish conspiracy theories to flourish, and promotes demagoguery over deliberation.”

Polarization is real. But amplification cuts both ways. The same algorithms that surface conspiracy theories also amplify truths that the mainstream media suppresses. In an age of censorship and propaganda, this amplification has sometimes been the only way truth surfaces. 

The deeper issue is that people no longer share the same reality. A breaking story fractures into irreconcilable narratives depending on whether it spreads via Twitter, TikTok, Bluesky or Reddit; whether filtered through left-leaning fact-checkers or right-leaning commentators; whether summarized by Grok or ChatGPT. Each tribe outsources “truth formation” to its own authorities, who are incentivized to deliver emotionally convenient facts. LLMs can also generate synthetic personalities to disrupt discourse at scale. Regulation will not restore trust here — because the problem is not just what flows, but how trust is established in the first place.

That said, algorithms are optimized for outrage because outrage is profitable. Regulation will not change this, as it’s as much an economic problem as it is a technical one.

As Neal Howe and William Strauss describe in “The Fourth Turning,” we’re in a crisis era: Consensus frays, power realigns and old arrangements give way. In practice, that means more friction online — tribal feeds, narrative knife fights and rising coordination costs. In other words, we should expect to see some of the carnage we are seeing today, and we can do something about it. 

2. Mental Health and Addictive Algorithms 

Berners-Lee says:
“Many social media users report suffering mental health issues after prolonged usage. The catalogue of ills related to social media is alarming: anxiety, depression, jealousy, inadequacy, feelings of isolation, body image issues.”

I agree, social media is liberating and destructive in equal measure. Search queries for anxiety rise in parallel with usage, and the catalogue of harms is long: depression, inadequacy, body image issues, isolation. This is certainly something that needs fixing. 

Berners-Lee says:
“Social media companies are using machine-learning techniques to make users addicted to their platforms. These systems are designed to be addictive, feeding people more and more extreme content, making them alternately angry and sad.”

This is not accidental. Twenty-plus years ago, Silicon Valley execs and engineers were taught how to design addictive systems at BJ Fogg’s Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford (his book, for anyone interested, is called “Persuasive Technology”), with some even attending retreats at his home where these ideas were explored further. The *Like* button, infinite scroll and red notification badges all came from his teachings and were engineered to hijack dopamine pathways. 

Jack Dorsey, speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2024, spoke about the damage caused by the algorithms designed by these companies: 

“The real debate should be about free will. We are being programmed based on what we say we’re interested in, and we’re told through these discovery mechanisms what is interesting — and as we engage and interact with this content, the algorithm continues to build more and more of this bias.”

Dorsey has previously spoken about how Twitter began as a protocol vision before venture capital steered it toward growth, control and ad monetization. Having seen the corruption of that vision, it’s no coincidence that Dorsey now backs open source protocols like Nostr, Bitchat and previously Bluesky. His investments are a confirmation that platforms cannot be reformed from within. Only protocols, open by design, can protect free will from algorithmic capture.

Berners-Lee has suggested that algorithms could be rebuilt to maximize joy rather than outrage. It’s a noble vision, one I wish were realistic — but under current incentives, it is not. Research shows that high-arousal emotions, especially anger, spread faster than calm or positive emotions.

Attempts to pivot have proven costly before. For instance, when Facebook adjusted its News Feed in 2018 to reduce harmful content, users spent 50 million fewer hours per day on the site and publishers saw traffic collapse. More recent audits confirm the same pattern: Platforms that downrank divisive content see measurable drops in engagement and revenue. (You can find related studies here, here, here and here.)

As long as companies are bound by their fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, regulators cannot force them to deliberately make less money so long as outrage remains more profitable than joy.

Regulation of the Internet

Berners-Lee has long been one of the web’s strongest defenders. He fought for net neutrality, encryption and decentralization. He warned of surveillance long before it was fashionable. He has stood on the side of open participation and user empowerment.

So it comes as somewhat of a surprise when Berners-Lee concedes that regulation might be necessary. He even quotes bad-faith actor Yuval Noah Harari to support this case: 

“If a social media algorithm recommends to people a hate-filled conspiracy theory, this is the fault not of the person who produced the conspiracy theory, it is the fault of the people who designed and let loose the algorithm.” 

While I begrudgingly agree with Harari in this instance, let’s not lose sight of who we’re dealing with. He is a World Economic Forum favorite, a consistent advocate of technocratic solutions and someone who has described bitcoin as a currency of distrust. His worldview defaults to centralization, surveillance and state power. His arguments are dressed in reason but advance less autonomy and more control.

Berners-Lee admits: “While I generally oppose the regulation of the web, in this instance I agree.” I’m sorry, but regulation is a slippery slope that we should do our utmost to avoid.

It’s because Berners-Lee has been such a defender of the internet that his concession to regulation feels a little defeatist. Has the relentless rise of algorithmic capture, misinformation and addictive design worn him down? Perhaps. But regulation is not the answer.

Another word on regulation… When governments regulate, they entrench incumbents and weaponize “safety” to justify censorship. They are also hopelessly incompetent — the EU’s cookie law is a perfect example: It protected nobody, achieved nothing and left users dealing with annoying pop-ups.

True democracy online should be crowdsourced and built with open protocols — rules without rulers.

The Economic Headwind of a Free and Flourishing Internet

Now let’s get to the crux of the matter. The biggest issue is fiat money. Its full implementation in 1971 marked a fork in the road: productivity kept climbing, but wages stagnated in real terms. WTF Happened in 1971? shows the divergence clearly — inequality, debt, housing costs and social decay all accelerating after Nixon severed the final tie to gold.

Before 1971, prices and wages remained relatively stable. For centuries, under hard money, there was equilibrium. During the short-lived classical gold standard, the Belle Époque delivered a golden age of invention and relative prosperity. Prices stayed stable, and by most accounts, life flourished. That stability vanished once fiat money became the norm.

Since then, and at an accelerating pace, people have had to work harder for less. Companies have been forced to extract more productivity while becoming less ethical. Remember Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto? This is likely the malevolent force that caused Sergey, Larry and Eric to lose their innocence.

Speaking of Google, its ad model killed traditional media’s business model, leaving it dependent on state subsidies and corporate sponsorships. Governments now use media as PR machines, which is a large part of the polarization problem we are witnessing online. 

The venture capital model, fuelled by cheap fiat credit, warped Silicon Valley incentives from hacker-led engineering to surveillance-led profit extraction. Centralization and monopolization are hallmarks of easy credit and the Cantillon effect. 

Jeff Booth estimates technology applies a natural deflationary force of ~5% per year, while Saifedean Ammous argues that real inflation — not CPI, but monetary expansion — runs closer to 15-16%. Governments offset deflation with money printing; companies respond by extracting more from users in an ever-increasing race to the bottom. 

The outcome is visible in equity markets: the Mediocre 493 firms listed on the S&P 500 are structurally failing, and the S&P, powered by the Magnificent 7, basically mirrors the money supply.

And layered on top of fiat, fiduciary duty and quarterly reporting locked companies into a head-on battle with inflation. Fiduciary duty, codified in 19th-century U.S. law, simply required directors to act in shareholders’ best interests. But the SEC’s 1970 mandate for quarterly 10-Q reporting — combined with Milton Friedman’s 1970 essay in the New York Times proclaiming that the sole responsibility of business is to increase profits — hardened the culture of “quarterly capitalism.” 

This convergence — fiat money, shareholder primacy, quarterly reporting and venture-funded adtech — created the perfect storm. Companies are structurally incentivized to fuel outrage, addiction, and mine user data. Regulation cannot change this so long as the underlying money system is broken. Until we change course and return to sound money, design fixes will always fail under economic pressure. 

Tim Berners-Lee, Bitcoin is the Panacea!

Bitcoin is both a cure for broken money and a foundation for new business models online. It is not an app or a company — it is a monetary base layer that resets incentives at the root. 

I don’t know where Berners-Lee stands on Bitcoin specifically. Publicly, he’s dismissed crypto as a speculative casino. On that, I agree. Bitcoin is different: no insiders, no venture fund, no foundation, no mutable rules. If he sees that distinction, good; if not yet, maybe soon.

Fixing money

Bitcoin combines the best properties of gold — durability, scarcity, uniformity, unforgeable costliness — with the best properties of fiat — divisibility, portability. The result is unequivocally the best money ever designed: It’s also borderless, censorship-resistant, decentralized, openly programmable, bound by thermodynamics and internet-native.

In contrast to Bitcoin, it’s becoming clearer with each passing year that the fiat system is crumbling beneath our feet, as bitcoin monetizes in its shadow. Bitcoin offers a way to diffuse the global debt bubble rather than let it implode, correcting the course of monetary history by placing global money back on a sound footing.

The implications are enormous, if/when bitcoin becomes fiat’s successor. For the first time in living memory, society would no longer have to swim against the tide just to stay still. With sound money, the natural deflationary benefits of technological progress can accrue to all, not be siphoned away by those closest to the spigot.

Jeff Booth, in “The Price of Tomorrow,” makes the point that technology is inherently deflationary, i.e., it delivers more for less. But under fiat money, this deflation is papered over with inflation, debt and growth targets. Bitcoin harmonizes money with technology. Its fixed supply means the gains of technological deflation accrue to everyone, rather than being siphoned away. 

Fixing incentives online

“If you consider the internet to be the equivalent to a nation state, it will have a currency native to itself, and there is not going to be any one party or institution that makes this happen, and there’s not going to be any one party or institution that can stop it from happening.” – (Jack Dorsey, Quartz)

Now that we have an internet native currency, the question is… what can it enable?

Well, first of all, bitcoin can reshape incentives online. It can do this by enabling micropayments, streaming sats and peer-to-peer monetization, meaning users can support creators directly. Platforms can earn money without selling their users’ data to advertisers. This could lessen the effect or even do away with an ad-driven, data mining model that forces platforms to optimize for outrage.

It will also upend the venture capital model, as presently those who are closest to the money spigot benefit in greater proportion. As Bitcoin has no central bank to create more money, everyone has a relatively equal footing, and thus investment should become more decentralized, once again.

From there, entirely new dynamics can emerge. Protocols and applications won’t be beholden to growth-at-all-costs models dictated by venture funds; they can scale organically, funded by the very users who rely on them. Value becomes the metric, not quarterly growth or ad impressions. Developers can ship products that solve real problems, and be rewarded directly in sats. Communities can pool capital without intermediaries, seeding projects from the bottom up rather than waiting for approval from the top down.

In this environment, the internet can finally align with its original ethos — open, interoperable and user-driven — because the monetary layer itself is open, interoperable and user-driven. Bitcoin clears the ground for that alignment. 

Bitcoin is not limited to fixing the web — it is upstream of it. Without sound money, design fixes will always be bent back toward exploitation. With sound money, platforms can adopt models that are ethical by default. With internet-native money, creators can be paid directly. Bitcoin is the fulcrum where broken incentives give way to healthier systems — online and off.

“The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen.” – Julian Assange

Fixing this does not require government regulation. It requires realigning incentives — with open protocols and Sound Money.

Open Source Solutions

Berners-Lee points to open source tools like Polis, Mastodon and Fora as promising experiments in healthier online discourse. Building on these efforts, a new wave of protocols combines the same open ethos with a native internet money, aligning incentives in ways that advertising-driven models never could.

With Bitcoin as the economic base, protocols can address the design layer. These systems are live, early and need broader adoption and a killer application — but they already show how to realign incentives without regulation.

Mastodon demonstrates what’s possible with open source federation and timelines built from people you choose to follow, rather than engagement-driven algorithms. And while its refusal to rely on advertising is a strength, the absence of a native payments system is a limitation.

Enter Nostr

Launched in late 2019 by Fiatjaf, Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) is a simple protocol that decouples identity and content from any single app. Keys identify users; relays transmit signed events. Multiple clients (Damus, Amethyst, Primal, Iris, Alby) read and write to the same social graph, delivering real interoperability — the kind of cross-client, cross-app portability Berners-Lee calls for.

Users pick relays and shape their own feeds, putting algorithmic choice firmly in their hands. This echoes the idea Harvard professor Jonathan Zittrain proposed — and which Berners-Lee spotlights in his book — for fine-tuned controls to steer content away from conspiracy rabbit holes. Unlike that platform-driven vision, Nostr empowers users directly, with its algorithmic flexibility limited only by the protocol’s young age.

While payments aren’t part of the base design, Lightning “zaps” are now common — native, instant tipping and payments tied to posts and profiles. That pairing — open communication plus open money — enables bottom-up coordination and rapid iteration without gatekeepers. Deletion is advisory (clients/relays may honor it), so there’s practical permanence and accountability across the network.

Read more: Nostr: censorship-resistant communication

Protocols, Infused with Bitcoin

Chaumian Mints

Cashu by Calle brings Chaumian eCash to Bitcoin — private, bearer-style tokens that can run alongside Nostr or standalone. It enables fast, private micro-flows; Calle also co-founded BitChat with Jack Dorsey, taking these ideas into a user-facing chat context.

Reputation Systems

Community Notes proves cross-faction context can slow misinformation. Add transparent weighting, DIDs and Web-of-Trust primitives and you get a durable, portable reputation. Put sats as skin-in-the-game (bonds/slashing for dishonest signals) and the mechanism strengthens without central censors.

Spam Resistance

Spam isn’t new, and it isn’t purely online. Usenet has handled floods for decades as a decentralized, user-run network with no central regulator. Adam Back’s Hashcash showed the core principle: attach a small proof-of-work cost and abuse drops. The same economics apply now with bitcoin — sats-priced frictions via Lightning (or Ark Protocol) make bot farms and propaganda expensive while keeping honest participation cheap. 

Spam is basically a numbers game: When it’s free, it scales; add cost and you restore the signal. Think refundable per-post/per-DM deposits, PoW stamps or rate limits priced in sats— good-faith interaction stays sustainable while mass manipulation becomes uneconomic.

In Conclusion

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is right about the symptoms. Our opinions differ regarding the cure. Regulation cannot reverse centralization engineered by states and corporations; it merely entrenches governments into the problem it partly created.

The drift didn’t start with bad UX. It started with broken money (and all the problems therein) and the end of sound money (1971), in addition to shareholder-primacy dogma, bent incentives toward short-term nominal gains and surveillance advertising. From there, outrage paid the bills, while integrity fell by the way.

The remedy is Bitcoin returning the world to sound money, which will enable open protocols to better power the web.

Screw the regulators.

Fix the money, fix the world.

This post A Response to Sir Tim Berners-Lee: We Can Fix the Web Without Regulation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Conor Mulcahy.

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Bitcoin’s Quantum Risk Is Real – One Solution Might Start with Taproot

Roughly a quarter of all Bitcoin is exposed to the risk of a quantum attack, tied to public keys that have been revealed on the blockchain. But if that much of the supply is vulnerable, it raises a deeper concern: is trust in Bitcoin’s entire security model at risk?

Imagine waking up, checking your phone, and your bitcoin balance is zero. Not just your cold storage, your exchange balances too. Gone. Overnight, millions of UTXOs drained in a silent, coordinated attack.

It sounds extreme, but this kind of event would be more than just theft. It would be a direct attack on Bitcoin’s value, a public signal that its core cryptography is no longer secure. A state-level actor might attempt something like this, not just to steal coins, but to destroy trust and deliberately cause chaos.

Not every attacker would act so loudly. A more self-incentivized one might take the opposite approach. With access to a quantum computer, they could quietly target older UTXOs, draining coins from forgotten or inactive wallets. Their goal would be to siphon off as much as possible before the rest of the world catches on.

But whether the attack is loud or quiet, fast or slow, the end result is more or less the same. The assumptions that secure Bitcoin are no longer true in a post-quantum world. The math that secured Bitcoin from its beginning could be broken at any point, by a machine none of us have seen yet, but we know is theoretically possible.

What Quantum Computers Actually Break

A quantum computer isn’t just a faster version of computers we have today. It’s a fundamentally different type of machine. For most tasks, it wouldn’t be much faster than a regular computer. But for very specific problems, it would be powerful enough to break a lot.

Bitcoin’s digital signatures today, including Schnorr and ECDSA, rely on something called the discrete logarithm problem. Think of it as a kind of mathematical one-way street. It’s easy to go one direction, but extremely hard to go back. You can take a private key and generate a public key or signature, but doing the reverse, deriving the private key from the public key, is practically impossible. And this is why you can share your public key on the blockchain safely, because it’s infeasible for anyone to reverse it and derive your corresponding private key.

But with a large enough quantum computer, that assumption breaks. Using Shor’s algorithm, a quantum attacker could solve the discrete logarithm problem. And that “one-wayness” no longer holds. Given any public key on the blockchain, an attacker can derive its corresponding private key.

Hard Choices, Big Trade-offs

There are no perfect solutions here. Any plan to defend Bitcoin against these quantum attacks involves some big trade-offs. Some are technical. Some are social. All of them are hard.

One possibility is to introduce a new kind of output type that uses only post-quantum signatures. Instead of relying on discrete logarithms, which quantum computers can break, you would lock coins using quantum-safe signature schemes from the beginning. Anyone sending funds to that address knows they are choosing stronger, future-proof security.

A big trade-off here is size. Most post-quantum signatures are huge, often measured in kilobytes instead of bytes. This means post-quantum signatures can be 40-600 times bigger than current Bitcoin signatures. If an ECDSA/Schnorr signature fits inside a text message, a post-quantum signature could be as large as a small digital photo. They cost more to broadcast, and more to store on the blockchain. HD wallets, multisig setups, and even basic key management, become more complex or may not even work at all. Doing threshold signatures with post-quantum signatures is still an open research problem.

A related proposal for going fully post-quantum comes from Jameson Lopp, who proposed a fixed 4-year migration window. After the introduction of post-quantum signatures, give the Bitcoin ecosystem a few years to rotate into quantum-safe outputs. After that, coins that have not been moved are treated as lost. An aggressive approach, but it sets a clear deadline and gives the network time to adapt before any crisis hits.

Until the threat becomes more real, we’d prefer to rely on the cryptography we already trust. But if we all agree that Bitcoin needs a plan, what is it going to be?

No one wants to rush into chance Bitcoin with unproven assumptions. Rather than pushing in something entirely new, Bitcoin might already have a built-in starting point. Taproot!

Taproot’s Hidden Post-Quantum Safety

Taproot, introduced in 2021, is mostly known for improving privacy and efficiency. What many users don’t realize is that it could also be the basis for a smoother transition into a post-quantum world.

Every Taproot output contains an initially hidden set of alternative spending conditions. These alternative script paths are never revealed unless used. Right now, most Taproot coins are spent using Schnorr signatures, but those hidden paths can be used for almost anything. That includes post-quantum (PQ) signature checks.

The idea that Taproot’s internal structure could withstand quantum attacks goes back to Matt Corallo, who first propagated it. And recently, Tim Ruffing of Blockstream Research published a paper showing that this approach is in fact secure: fallback paths inside Taproot can remain trusted, even if Schnorr and ECDSA are broken.

This opens the door to a simple but powerful upgrade path.

Step 1: Add Post-Quantum Opcodes

The first step is to introduce support for post-quantum signatures in Bitcoin Script. This could be done by adding new opcodes that allow Taproot scripts to verify PQ signatures, using algorithms currently being standardized and evaluated.

That way, users could start creating Taproot outputs with two spending paths:

• The key-path would still use fast, efficient Schnorr signatures for day-to-day use.
• The script-path would contain a post-quantum fallback, only revealed if needed.

Nothing changes in the short term. Coins behave the same. But if a quantum threat appears, the fallback is already in place.

Step 2: Flip the Kill Switch

Later, if a large quantum computer is developed and the risk becomes real, Bitcoin could disable Schnorr and ECDSA spending.

This kill switch would protect the network by preventing coins in vulnerable outputs from being stolen. As long as users have moved their coins to upgraded Taproot outputs that include post-quantum fallbacks, those coins would remain safe and spendable.

The transition will unavoidably cause some friction, but hopefully it would be less disruptive than a last-minute scramble. And thanks to Taproot’s hidden script paths, most of this work could happen quietly in advance.

Prepping Without Panic

There is no countdown clock to the quantum threat. We have no idea when this breakthrough in quantum computing will happen. It could be a decade away, or it could be much closer. No one knows. 

None of this is simple. There are still open questions about which post-quantum algorithms we should use, how to make them efficient enough for Bitcoin, and how to preserve core features like threshold multisig and key derivation. But the most important thing is to start. Ideally not after the first cryptographically relevant quantum computer has been built, but now, while the system is still secure and upgrade paths are still available.

By enabling post-quantum signature support within Bitcoin Script today, we give users time to prepare. Education can happen gradually, without panic. And users can start to migrate coins at their own pace. If we wait too long, we lose that luxury. Upgrades done under stress rarely go smoothly.

Tim Ruffing’s work lays out a possible path forward. A plan that makes use of tools Bitcoin already has. Read his full paper to understand how this works in detail.

This is a guest post by Kiara Bickers from Blockstream. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post Bitcoin’s Quantum Risk Is Real – One Solution Might Start with Taproot first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Kiara Bickers.

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Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates by 25 Basis Points; Bitcoin Climbs Above $116,000

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point on Wednesday, lowering its benchmark federal funds rate to a target range of 4.00% to 4.25%. The move, widely anticipated by markets, marks the central bank’s first rate reduction in years and reflects growing concern over slowing job growth and heightened downside risks to the U.S. economy.

In its statement, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) noted that “recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity moderated in the first half of the year. Job gains have slowed, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remains low. Inflation has moved up and remains somewhat elevated.”

The Fed emphasized its dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices but acknowledged that “uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated” and that “downside risks to employment have risen.”

The decision to cut rates by 25 basis points was backed by 11 committee members, including Chair Jerome Powell. One dissent came from Stephen I. Miran, who argued for a larger 50-basis-point reduction.

Bitcoin Reacts to the Fed Cut

Following the announcement, Bitcoin (BTC) rose slightly above $116,000, according to data from Bitcoin Magazine Pro. The move reflects investor sentiment that looser monetary policy could support risk assets, including cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Market analysts pointed to Bitcoin’s quick reaction as a sign of its growing role as a macro-sensitive asset. While the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted modest gains, Bitcoin’s price spike underscored how digital assets may benefit disproportionately from expectations of easier financial conditions.

Policy Outlook

The Fed stressed that further adjustments will depend on incoming data. “In considering additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks,” the statement read.

The FOMC also reaffirmed its commitment to quantitative tightening, continuing to reduce its holdings of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed assets.

Looking ahead, traders are now pricing in the possibility of additional cuts if inflation continues to moderate and the labor market weakens further, according to Bloomberg. Powell is expected to expand on the Fed’s outlook in his press conference later today.

With this latest move, the central bank has signaled a cautious pivot toward easing. For Bitcoin, the response suggests that digital assets may be among the early beneficiaries of the Fed’s first steps toward looser policy.

This post Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates by 25 Basis Points; Bitcoin Climbs Above $116,000 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nik.

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Bitcoin Price Hits $117,000 as Treasury Stocks Like MSTR, NAKA Collapse

The hangover from the paper bitcoin summer delusion has arrived, swiftly and painfully. We see it, not in the bitcoin price, which is once more calmly and unremarkably ticking upward — pushing up against $117,000 Tuesday evening — but in the stock prices of bitcoin treasury companies. They’re all getting slaughtered: Look at the graphs of $MSTR, Metaplanet, $NAKA, H100, Smarter Web Company and they all look the same — shitcoin-style pump into the heavens, followed by a drawn-out decline back to where they started (or well below it). 

For a while there, we — and the rest of Wall Street — thought anyone could arbitrage financial markets. Issue shares at above their intrinsic value; buy bitcoin; repeat. For this vertiginous summer fling, Wall Street was paying more than a dollar for a dollar’s worth of bitcoin, and everyone’s eyes lit up with dollar signs; this is a trade that, if you’re able to, you’ll happily do all day long. 

But now that that’s over, there’ll be hell to pay — and the devil is already out kicking ass and taking names. 

Oh, and it’s not nice to kick a guy who’s already down (and certainly not when that guy is in some sense your boss…) but given that $NAKA fell a whopping 50% the other day after the S3 PIPE shares restriction period ended — having already collapsed some 87% from its May pump-and-dump peak — it’d be remiss of us price therapists not to take a second look.

So, with the outstanding, tradeable float of shares increased overnight some 50x — and, one would suppose, plenty of second-layer PIPE “insiders” wanna dump-dump-duuuuump — the formula was pretty simple: lots of extra supply meet no demand equals collapsing price. In bitcoin treasury company analyst Adam Livingston’s words: “And you get a perfect physics lesson here: add mass, you lose altitude.”

As usual, bitcoin didn’t care: It jumped almost 2% today, on no material news, after a brief fling downward off its current $116,000 stablecoin pattern. As Bitcoin Magazine Pro’s Matt Crosby says in a recent video, bitcoin price is “poised for breakout.”

The same cannot be said for the poor treasury companies.

Even best-in-class Saylor’s Strategy ($MSTR) is struggling — as it has since operation offload-on-retail began last year; Strategy is gobbling up coins by the hundreds, yet the mNAV compresses more and more, hitting an (unadjusted) yearly low of 1.27. We’re quickly getting to the point where the stock premium (i.e., the source of all treasury company magic) is gone, and the treasury companies become expensive, glorified ETFs.

“Always have been,” the meme world might retort.

Back to our beloved frog, Nakamoto. Baaaaaad things happened to it recently. This is a nasty chart: 

Printing infinite number of copiable paper against a non-credible bitcoin strategy could never have ended any other way. Congrats, NAKA leadership; you wasted six months (or more) of prime bull market real estate playing high finance, and now you’re punished for it.

The delusion that was bitcoin treasury strategy has ended, and the NAKA strategy — running the mNAV-squared treasury strategy — has squarely suffered because of it. (Though, as of this writing, $NAKA is up 20% on the day from its extreme crazy low… yah-yah, nobody cares.)

Livingston is, again, making beautiful sense of the madness: 

“The September 15 crash was not a mysterious market mood swing. It was the predictable result of half a billion discounting shares stampeding through an order book designed for a few million: supply floods, the price sinks, and the physics lesson is complete.”

The everlasting upward magic of (money-share printing) bitcoin treasury companies is gone. Good riddance. Now these companies have to prove real value-add with the corporate-wrapped coins they hold on to so dearly… or perhaps we can go back to de-financializing the economy — you know, that annoying, original reason for Bitcoin. 

This post Bitcoin Price Hits $117,000 as Treasury Stocks Like MSTR, NAKA Collapse first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Joakim Book.

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Book’s Books: Matt Sekerke and Steve Hanke, “Making Money Work: How to Rewrite the Rules of Our Financial System”

Making Money Work: How to Rewrite the Rules of Our Financial System, by Matt Sekerke and Steve H. Hanke, Wiley, 368 pages, $34.95.

I’m about to do something I’ve never done before, something that’s borderline unforgivable for a book reviewer: review a book without reading it, or even remotely finishing it.

Suppose two well-regarded, established economists at Johns Hopkins University write a long, dense, detailed book on how to make money work better. In the year 2025, no less, the 17th year of our lord Bitcoin’s continued, flourishing existence, they flippantly dismiss this monetary newcomer in a single sentence. In that case, they deserve to have their own book similarly relegated to the dustbins… so I stopped reading Sekerke and Hanke’s book after 33 pages, concluding ceremonially that this title wasn’t worth my time — or indeed the attention of anybody concerned with building a monetary future to fix the monetary ills of our past and present.

“Behind every fiat money used in exchange lies a unit of account defined by a monetary standard [which is] underwritten by credible claims to future surpluses monetized by the government and/or the commercial banking system. […] Claims of a ‘Bitcoin standard’ or anything like it are completely indefensible” (p. 28).

The only reason they see bitcoin trading at a positive price at all — let alone all-time highs — is that malicious actors wishing to use it “must random a large enough quantity in U.S. dollar terms (usually) from existing holders” (p. 33), i.e., a holdup problem:

“Rises in the bitcoin price do not prove the intrinsic value (or network value, or whatever) of Bitcoin any more than a lack of homes for sale in a neighborhood makes those homes infinitely valuable” (fn 48, p. 33).

Like modern monetary theorists, Hanke and his coauthor observe that bitcoin isn’t issued, in the sense of created, by a government and not upheld by that government’s tax receivability, which therefore renders it unimportant and irrelevant for monetary analysis.

This is a crucial misstep, not at all a fault of Bitcoin’s monetary properties, but of the authors’ narrow field of vision.

Bitcoin is for anyone, but certainly not everyone. Some people are just too salty, too infected by Bitcoin derangement syndrome (BDS), too enamored by their own egos, or too stuck in the rapidly devolving status quo. Science progresses one funeral at a time.

BDS, a severe illness at the end of the fiat age, has taken better victims than Messrs Sekerke and Hanke, but it’s still tragic to see. A huge disappointment and missed opportunity for otherwise quite sharp minds to engage with the most interesting monetary phenomenon in our lifetimes.

This is a book review from The Lightning Issue of Bitcoin Magazine Print. Get your copy here.

This post Book’s Books: Matt Sekerke and Steve Hanke, “Making Money Work: How to Rewrite the Rules of Our Financial System” first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Joakim Book.

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ZBD’s SDK Powers Bitcoin Earnings in Mobile Games, Driving 124% Revenue Growth

ZBD, Bitcoin payments gaming company, has integrated Bitcoin rewards into Idle Bank, a game title from TapNation with over 12 million downloads. TapNation is one of the world’s leading mobile game publishers with over 1 billion total downloads. The announcement comes weeks after ZBD launched what is possibly the first mobile app on Apple phones with bitcoin rewards.

ZBD, a Bitcoin payments company launched in 2019, was founded by Simon Cowell, Andre Neves, and Christian Moss to address payment issues in the gaming industry using Bitcoin. Ben Cousens, a former venture capitalist and Bitcoiner, joined as an investor after being introduced to the founders, drawn in by their vision. In an exclusive interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Cousens recalled, “I got introduced to Simo, the CEO, by phone, and we jumped on the call, and he just said, ‘I have seen how the games industry’s got a payments issue and I think Bitcoin is the solution.’ And my ears pricked right up.”

Born out of the 2018-2019 growth of the Lightning Network, the company has developed a mature set of development tools that make it seamless for game developers to integrate Bitcoin rewards into their video games, including an API and an SDK (Software Development Kit). 

Today, the company is focused on the mobile gaming market. There are over 3 billion gamers worldwide, with a majority of them playing on mobile devices, and generating $95 billion in annual revenue. 

“What really made me bullish on the business was the commercial acumen of the team. A lot of Bitcoin startups are fighting the good fight for Bitcoin adoption, but consumer adoption outside of investing and saving has been a challenge. Blocks are still empty today in 2025. That usage problem is solvable when you build something consumers engage with, and I felt gaming was a powerful overlap. There are three billion gamers in the world. It’s a very large industry.” Cousens added.

Play Counter Strike, Earn Bitcoin 

The startup made headlines in the Bitcoin industry with an early test case of its payments technology. In 2021, ZBD launched a modded Counter-Strike server — a popular first-person shooter video game among PC gamers — which included Bitcoin drops for kills, creating a real-money competitive dynamic, described at the time as the ‘next generation of esports’. Cousens explained, “If I shot you, you dropped coins in the map, and if I ran and collected those coins, you’d pick them up instantly in the game.” 

The Counter-Strike demo was a major success, capturing the imagination of bitcoiners and grabbing the attention of gamers alike. In fact, it was such a successful demo that hackers and “try-hard” gamers started to play, finding ways to exploit the game and maximize Bitcoin reward payouts. “When we did Counter-Strike, the first thing that happened was obviously people farmed the servers and they just joined the games, killed everyone, took all the money and quit, using wall hacks and whatever. And it was ‘Oh yeah, forgot about that.’” Cousens recalled adding that “we then introduced actually, quite a simple mechanic for the Counter-Strike example that worked, which was you had to pay to join the server. That immediately deterred like 85-90% of the bad actors.”

The game “blew up” in Brazil, growing their discord community to over 100,000 people, some of whom volunteered to “sit on the server and watch for cheats” to manually boot bad actors, rewarding reports with 100 – 500 sats over the lightning network, depending on the situation. “it wasn’t scalable. It was like Mechanical Turk style.” Cousens noted.

Eventually, ZBD shut down the Counter-Strike demo. “We’re in the business of providing the tools to the game devs, not building games or running games ourselves,” Cousens explained. The company shifted focus to the massive mobile gaming market, but the experience led ZBD down a deep cyber security rabbit hole, which informed their developer tooling services. Game developers and advertisers alike should not have to worry about deep cyber security to integrate Bitcoin into their games, after all.

As an example of the lengths ZBD goes to prevent ad fraud in their games today, Cousens shared that they keep an eye on the phone’s accelerometer, a sensor that measures the device’s movement, to know if the phone is in a user’s hand. This is to protect against farms of devices running auto-clicking software to defraud advertisers. 

Reflecting on his experience working in the Bitcoin industry now for over half a decade in a highly adversarial niche, fighting off gamers who tend to be particularly tech savvy and cunning, Cousens noted that “bitcoiners are bloody good cryptographers. I mean, if you’re in the Bitcoin community, you always talk yourself down, right? ‘We don’t know what we don’t know’ or ‘nothing is ever risk-free’, blah blah blah. But this is an industry built around cryptography and encryption. And that is also cybersecurity. The overlap there is just insane. And as a result, Bitcoin engineers and bitcoiners tend to make quite good security people. We’re all quite paranoid by nature, right?” 

The ZBD SDK and API

The SDK, which was recently announced by ZBD and is being used in the latest partnership with the Idle Bank integration, is also available for game developers. Cousens told Bitcoin Magazine, “We just released the ZBD SDK, which packages together everything,  all of our security into a very simple and easy to use package, and that’s not sales hyperbole. People are able to integrate this in two or three days because it’s genuinely drag-and-drop. Create a little Bitcoin asset for your video game, drop it in the game, and choose how and where you want to pay people.”

ZBD is now actively working with close to 40 game developers, according to Cousens, all of whom are working to integrate bitcoin rewards into their video games, paid out using Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. Cousens, who is a big fan of the Lightning Network, defended the protocol, saying that “there’s still FUD about Lightning and I don’t get it… ZBD has no on-chain offering. Lightning is amazing.”

The integration of bitcoin rewards into mobile games is far from a gimmick; it is having measurable results on user retention for ZBD’s clients. Discussing the impact on Fumbgames’ “Bitcoin Miner” video game, Cousens said, “I’m not going to share their numbers because I can’t, but they’ve grown more than 10x as a business as a result of this. And we see this quite consistently, when you distribute Bitcoin to players, you’re paying them to play. The engagement goes through the roof. And we’ve done surveys of Gen Z and worked with gamers to validate what’s going on here.”

The model is simple. Advertisers pay game developers for views and clicks; a portion of that revenue gets turned into bitcoin and returned to players as rewards. The bitcoin rewards increase user retention, which increases advertising dollars. The same process plays out with in-game purchases as well. 

“We focused on the ad monetization side of the gaming industry, hence rewards and bitcoin payouts. Our proposition to the games industry was ‘hey, why don’t you take a small amount of your ad revenue and redistribute it to the players, and we bet you they’ll play more, especially if it’s bitcoin.” Cousens remarked.

SaraTobi’s Bitcoin Microtransactions on Apple Phones

Following the aftermath of the Epic vs Apple lawsuit in the EU, which ruled against Apple’s monopolistic app store practices, the door was now unlocked to do micropayments inside mobile apps without having to pay an exorbitant fee to the device manufacturer. ZBD walked right through that door, getting approval for the first mobile game with in-app bitcoin purchases and microtransactions, SaruTobi. The game features a cute little monkey that has to swing from tree to tree to collect bananas, which in turn can be traded in for satoshis.  “SaruTobi got through Apple’s review, where you could make purchases in Bitcoin. That was us doing some R&D,” noted Cousens. 

Idle Bank Integration – Bitcoin in Mainstream Gaming

Most recently, ZBD announced a partnership with TapNation, a leading mobile publisher with “over 1 billion total downloads,” according to the press release. Their flagship game is called Idle Bank, which already has over 12 million downloads. Idle Bank is the first mainstream mobile game to deliver native Bitcoin rewards to players via the Lightning Network. ZBD reports that since launch, the game has achieved a 355% increase in 30-day player retention and a 124% boost in revenue per player, demonstrating Bitcoin’s impact on engagement and monetization.

Commenting on the integration, Cousens said, “We’ve known Philippe at TapNation for quite some time. He’s very interested in looking for ways the games industry can adopt new technologies, and he had faith in us that this bitcoin rewards model is powerful and works, so his teams agreed to integrate the ZBD SDK. They did find it very easy. Idle Bank is a game where you print fiat money and mine Bitcoin secretly to screw over your customers. I recommend people play it because you can stack real sats, simulating being a real central banker.”

This post ZBD’s SDK Powers Bitcoin Earnings in Mobile Games, Driving 124% Revenue Growth first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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A Circular Economy and the Four Archetypes of Bitcoiners

A few years ago, I made an unlikely bet: to build a Bitcoin circular economy in the heart of a fishing village in Brazil’s Northeast. No venture capitalists, no “crypto,” no empty promises. Only nodes, satoshis, in‑person education and plenty of sidewalk conversations. 

That is how Praia Bitcoin Jericoacoara was born: a radical experiment in financial sovereignty built with open source tools and feet in the sand.

In four years at Praia Bitcoin Jericoacoara, we turned a beach town into a living Bitcoin classroom: We onboarded families, shopkeepers and street vendors; taught self‑custody in small groups; installed reliable Lightning routes and point‑of‑sale tools; ran social programs paid in sats; and hosted meetups that made Bitcoin part of daily life.

Living on the Bitcoin standard, I began to see what is really happening at the technological edge. 

In August 2025, I published four short articles on X. Different in form and tone, they converged on the same question: What role should Bitcoin play, and what role should we play in building it? They came in fours:

• a field report on our work with the Bitcoin Community Bank in Jericoacoara
• a critique of bitcoin maximalism’s rigidity
• a diplomatic letter inviting Bhutan’s prime minister to consider the satoshi as a unit of account, and
• a public appeal to keep Bitcoin a peer‑to‑peer cash system. 

What they share is the desire to align practice, theory, and a future‑facing vision.

In the first piece, I shared the challenges and lessons from a real experiment: building a Bitcoin‑based circular economy in Northeast Brazil. Inspired by Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador, we rooted the Jericoacoara project in education, inclusion and local infrastructure. We installed servers, onboarded merchants and neighbors, created social programs and sought institutional recognition as a Community Bitcoin Bank.

We were rejected by the local authorities. Even in the face of the state’s legal and political unpreparedness, we moved forward with conviction. We believe that when Bitcoin is rooted in place, it can be more than money; it can be a tool for community transformation. Yet authorities struggled to understand this, and they denied our request to register what would have been the first Bitcoin community bank.

In the second piece, I confronted an ideological tension within the community itself. Maximalist rhetoric, which defends Bitcoin as the only legitimate project and treats the rest of “crypto” as scams, had its historical role. It helped protect the integrity of the ecosystem, exposed frauds and accelerated market maturation. But does it still serve the goal of large‑scale adoption? Does it help communicate Bitcoin’s value to newcomers? I caught myself ignoring relevant technological solutions simply because they were outside the maximalist bubble. 

After revisiting the discussion and reading every reply and quote, my conclusion was that other projects end up serving as funnels, sandboxes or distribution channels that drive people toward real Bitcoin adoption. Stablecoins, altcoins, memecoins, and centralized cryptocurrencies are moving toward Bitcoin, absorbing inflation and even helping to establish the prices of other commodities. Perhaps it is time for a new posture: not abandoning principles, but embracing a Bitcoin that keeps the focus on the essence while remaining willing to engage with a world in constant transformation, with skepticism and an open mind; by educating regulators that Bitcoin is the decentralized cryptocurrency and that all other projects are centralized cryptocurrencies.

In the third piece, I took this vision into the diplomatic arena. I wrote an open letter to Bhutan’s prime minister suggesting that the country consider adopting the satoshi as its national unit of account.

The proposal, more symbolic than technical, had a clear goal: to imagine how Bitcoin can engage with alternative development models that do not depend on the IMF or the dollar and that respect local culture and sovereignty. The reaction to the letter revealed something important: even within the Bitcoin ecosystem there are ideological lanes: conservatives, centrists and progressives, each trying to interpret the protocol through a distinct worldview.

This article is therefore a point of convergence. It ties together those three experiences (practical, ideological and diplomatic) to propose a fresh look at what we are really trying to build. More than repeating dogmas, this moment calls for discernment. More than talking about freedom, it is time to practice it where it is most needed — on the ground, in our language, in our institutions and in our relationships.

In the fourth piece, I distilled my open note to Bitcoin Core into a simple point: keep Bitcoin a peer‑to‑peer cash system, not a generic data host.

I argued that loosening default data‑carrying settings invites bloat, legal risk and reputational damage, and asked developers to think in centuries, not release cycles. I also noted that recent Core releases, v29 and v30, revisited how much extra data transactions may carry by default. That lives at the technical edge of the protocol — software defaults, not the monetary rules. Bitcoin is money. Like a banknote you can scribble on but not use to publish a book, transactions can include small notes but should not be hijacked for unrelated content.

This context raised a bigger question: What do we want Bitcoin to be? The exchange made the fault lines clear: different groups love Bitcoin for different reasons and accept different trade‑offs. In the next section, I name those lanes and show how they fit together.

Watching Bitcoin Knots gain visibility relative to Bitcoin Core, and hearing developers complain about its pull‑request process, reminded me of the First Follower lesson. Knots is largely maintained by a single developer. 

Movements do not scale because a lone leader is brilliant. They scale when early followers make participation visible and easy, lowering social risk and showing others exactly how to behave.

From inside the industry, spending countless hours analyzing geopolitics and future trends, I began to see Bitcoiners in four main categories, with the extremes on both sides clearly defined so let’s break them down. 

The Four Archetypes of Bitcoin

Bitcoin Database, Coordination Builders

Core belief: Bitcoin is a neutral public record. It can coordinate people and software. Money is one powerful use, not the only one.

What they prioritize: Time‑stamps and proofs; public records; identity attestations; new media on Bitcoin; social protocols like Nostr; building most features on upper layers so L1 stays stable.

What they get right: They attract builders and new users with fresh ideas and on‑ramps. More experiments mean more chances to find lasting utility.

Risks and blind spots: The spotlight can drift away from money. Too much nonmonetary data can waste block space and invite controversy. New systems sometimes reintroduce trusted middlemen.

Attitude to Lightning: Open, when it helps apps feel instant. Also explore other rails. Keep L1 simple.

North Star checks: Useful apps with real users; active developers; low, respectful footprint on L1.

Frequent examples: Casey Rodarmor and Ordinals; Muneeb Ali and Stacks; Burak and Ark research; Maxim Orlovsky and RGB; fiatjaf and Nostr; OpenTimestamps. (Note: this is illustrative, not endorsements.)

Tagline: “Bitcoin is a database.”

Bitcoin Central, Market Pragmatists

Core belief: Bitcoin is money and an asset. Price and liquidity drive adoption at scale and help fund security and development.

What they prioritize: ETFs and treasuries; compliant on‑ramps and off‑ramps; deep, healthy markets; education for investors and institutions.

What they get right: Liquidity brings the next wave of users and pays for builders, mining and education.

Risks and blind spots: Convenience custody and short‑term thinking. Distribution can concentrate in a few large hands.

Attitude to Lightning: Pragmatic. Use it when it helps reach more people.

North Star checks: Market depth and volumes; hashrate security budget; ETF and retail participation.

Frequent examples: Michael Saylor; iShares and Fidelity Bitcoin ETFs; market makers; on‑chain analysts. Edge Case: High leverage and over‑reliance on corporate treasuries.

Tagline: “We care about price.”

Bitcoin Conservatives, Monetary Purists

Core belief: Bitcoin is money. Protect the base layer. Scarcity, neutrality and self‑custody are nonnegotiable. Save first, then spend (e.g., in a circular economy).

What they prioritize: Simple, stable rules on L1; run your own node; education on keys, UTXOs, and fees; miner and client diversity; long time horizons.

What they get right: Clear incentives and strong culture. If money is broken, every price in the economy is wrong. Fix money first.

Risks and blind spots: UX and payments can lag. Newcomers may feel gatekept. Adoption can slow if everyday use is ignored.

Attitude to Lightning: Often skeptical. Prefer on‑chain finality and warn about complexity and custodial drift.

North Star checks: More coins in self‑custody; healthy node count; decentralized mining; growing long‑term holder supply.

Frequent examples: Saifedean Ammous; Pierre Rochard; proof‑of‑keys style campaigns; full‑node culture and cold storage. Edge Case: Never sell. Treat every altcoin as a scam.

Tagline: “Bitcoin is digital gold.”

Bitcoin Minimalists: Digital Gold and Digital Cash, Tool for Social Transformation

Core belief: Bitcoin should be digital gold for saving and digital cash for spending, with the smallest possible trust surface.

What they prioritize: Save on‑chain with final settlement; spend via noncustodial Lightning where possible; use ecash mints like Cashu for privacy with simple exit to keys; merchant flows that settle to self custody.

What they get right: Align savings and daily use without giving up sovereignty.

Risks and blind spots: Friction and slower distribution; reluctance to adopt UX abstractions; fragmentation across minimal stacks.

Attitude to Lightning: Yes, but strict. Prefer noncustodial or minimally trusted setups. Be cautious with large custodial hubs.

North‑star checks: Users who both save on‑chain and spend via non‑custodial L2; easy withdrawals to keys; high payment success without custodians.

Tagline: “Buy, spend, replace.”

Conclusion

Bitcoin’s culture includes four honest defaults that often talk past one another. Builders expand the surface area, market pragmatists prove everyday utility, monetary purists scale distribution and minimalists protect the base.

Together. they create a productive tension that keeps Bitcoin useful and resilient for real people.

After years of working in a circular economy and writing publicly about these debates, my view is simple. Bitcoin is money. Keep the base layer simple. Save in bitcoin on-chain. Spend in sats when it serves people, as it does in a circular economy. Support Lightning only when the exit to your own keys stays clear and simple. I do not support the “Bitcoin as Database” path, because turning Bitcoin into a general data host distracts from its monetary mission and invites waste, confusion, and reputational harm.

The way forward is practical and principled. Judge ideas by whether they grow self custody, make payments reliable without custodians, deepen liquidity that funds security and education and respect the limits of the base layer. If we hold to that standard, the lanes can complement one another and more people will share in the benefits of a free, neutral and credibly decentralized money.

BM Big Reads are weekly, in-depth articles on some current topic relevant to Bitcoin and Bitcoiners. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine. If you have a submission you think fits the model, feel free to reach out at editor[at]bitcoinmagazine.com.

This post A Circular Economy and the Four Archetypes of Bitcoiners first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Fernando Motolese.

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The End of Paper Bitcoin Summer

As summer now turns to fall in the northern hemisphere, the stonkcoiner dream of bitcoinizing finance is rapidly becoming a nightmare. The bitcoin paper summer of issuing shares to clueless financial markets at (extreme) overvaluations to thereby buy bitcoin on the cheap is ending, not with a bang of success but with a pretty unimpressive whimper.

The bitcoin treasury dream was nice; I even openly admit that it made some sense. 

For a few months, Wall Street merrily entertained the froth and fuelled the fires. But at last, financial gravity is reasserting itself: We’re all waking up from our summer fling with financial delusion, where things traded for more than what they’re objectively worth. It’s both wonderful and tragic to see standard corporate finance once more hold firm.

Earlier this year, our own David Bailey, CEO of BTC Inc, the owner of Bitcoin Magazine, told Bitcoin for Corporations, another arm of BTC Inc, that “if you can sell a dollar for more than a dollar, you do that trade all day long.”

Turns out, that free-lunch strategy(!) wasn’t free… wiping out investor money in the process has been a painful journey in learning that lesson.  

When you — the retail bagholder — are buying a security instead of real bitcoin, you’re typically doing so at a premium (e.g., an mNAV above 1). Perversely, this is both verifiably insane — why buy a dollar for more than a dollar…? — and the very force that animates these bitcoin treasury companies.

Those of us looking at this with justifiable criticism presumed that the mNAVs would come down to roughly 1 via shares falling or staying flat while bitcoin’s fiat price rose. Fate played a trick on us by crashing the bitcoin price instead. In consequence, quite a lot of these airy, financial-alchemy monstrosities fell by much greater multiples.

Bailey’s own NAKA, for which Bitcoin Magazine provides certain marketing services, has been the most amusing (and for many people around these parts, financially tragic). When NAKA announced a major, $5-billion program of share issuance last month, the stock collapsed downward some 30% on the news — and kept tumbling thereafter, down a neat 70% from its initial pump around the announcement of reverse-merging with KindlyMD; $NAKA has fallen a whopping 85% from its highest point in May, recently setting a new low of $3.28.

Market prices are truth, and the truth here at the dusk of treasury companies’ dreamy delusion is that stuffing corporate balance sheets with retail-amassed equity and debt to acquire bitcoin was no way to the promised land.

“The market price tells you whether you’re right or wrong,” said Moshe Shen, managing director at APAC Wintermute Trading, on Day 1 of the recently concluded Bitcoin Asia in Hong Kong. I guess that tells us enough about the dubious prospects of Nakamoto and other bitcoin treasury companies.

The bitcoin treasury magic ended

The recurring pump-and-dump effect of issuing more shares for a bitcoin treasury strategy no longer come with a great pump to the share price; it falls, as sanity and traditional corporate finance would suggest. It doesn’t matter how many thousands of coins Saylor’s Strategy is eating, the price of MSTR keeps falling, having returned the sum total of zero percent to common shareholders since November last year; Metaplanet, having recently passed 20,000 coins in hyped-upii celebrations has seen its stock fall all the way back to levels not seen before the paper bitcoin summer kicked off.

In a recent article chronicling the treasury phenomenon, Nikou Asgari from the Financial Times remarked sourly that, “The crypto-buying strategy largely relies on issuing shares or raising debt to buy bitcoin and other tokens, hoping that this fuels share price growth.” Understating the point, she continues, “Raising capital becomes harder to do as company valuations fall, however.”

When the share price falls, and the mNAV compresses toward 1, the free-money magic goes away. We’ll find out if the hundreds of treasury companies out there have (any?) viability once the magic money-printing era is over.

Even Tyler Evans of UTXO Management, another BTC Inc and Nakamoto-involved company, confessed as much to Asgari in that same FT article: The market “got irrationally overheated,” and that the paper bitcoin summer “was the peak for both hype and for the number of companies launching.”

At the tail end of paper bitcoin summer, we see reality reasserting itself, dramatically recovering from the collective delusion that market prices on the world’s most liquid markets could veer so far off mNAV course.

Here’s a bold prediction: In a year’s time, bitcoin treasury companies won’t be a thing. Most of the lower-tiered ones won’t survive, and will instead spit out the coins they so gluttonously and recklessly gobbled up. The ones with serious moat and competent management teams, like Strategy or Metaplanet, will survive, but see their mNAV shrink to a sliver above zero, where they logically belong.

The paper bitcoin summer has ended, and I for one couldn’t be more excited to see these nightmares go back to the ethereal dreamlands from whence they came.

This post The End of Paper Bitcoin Summer first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Joakim Book.

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Africa’s Chipper Cash Adopts Lightning at Scale: 50% of Bitcoin Transactions Now Instant and Low-Cost

Chipper Cash, one of Africa’s leading fintech companies, announced today that more than 50% of all Bitcoin transactions on its platform now run over the Lightning Network, marking one of the most significant real-world deployments of Lightning to date.

The company, which serves millions of consumers and businesses across Africa, has been using Lightning through infrastructure provider Voltage to deliver faster, cheaper, and more reliable payments. This achievement well showcases the growing importance of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network as a viable everyday payment rail in markets where legacy systems often struggle.

“Lightning-enabled payments have the potential to empower and accelerate greater, more reliable financial access across Africa,” said Maijid Moujaled, Cofounder and President of Chipper Cash. “Voltage’s reliable infrastructure reduces the complexity of building on Lightning, allowing us to focus on scale. With Voltage, Lightning can truly become the backbone for global, real-time payments by delivering near-instant settlement at low cost for people and businesses that need it most.”

Founded in 2018 as a peer-to-peer remittance platform, Chipper Cash has since evolved into a fully licensed fintech provider, offering cross-border payments, virtual cards in partnership with Visa, stock investing, and stablecoin rails. Lightning has quickly become central to that expansion. What began as a weekend discovery by Moujaled himself has grown into continent-wide adoption, fueled largely by word of mouth.

One Chipper Cash customer described Lightning simply: “It’s like discovering fire,” highlighting the speed and reliability compared to traditional methods.

Across much of Africa, financial infrastructure is plagued by outages and delays, according to the company. Even after years of operation, fiat partners continue to experience downtime. Lightning, in contrast, delivers near-instant, always-on payments. For markets accustomed to unreliable systems, this represents a leap forward in financial accessibility.

Key success metrics from Chipper Cash’s Lightning rollout include:

• Over 50% of Bitcoin transactions are now powered by Lightning.
• Adoption fueled organically through customer referrals.
• Faster, smoother cross-border and domestic payment experiences.
• Stronger resilience compared to fiat rails.

The integration also enables interoperability with Strike, Cash App, and other Lightning-powered platforms, broadening Chipper’s reach globally. Recently, the company launched Chessa, enabling remittances via crypto rails with instant settlement into over 25 local fiat currencies. Lightning sits at the core of this offering.

“What Chipper Cash is doing with Lightning proves that emerging markets can leapfrog outdated payment rails,” said Graham Krizek, CEO of Voltage. “With Voltage powering certain parts of their infrastructure, they’ve unlocked instant, global, and low-cost payments that work every time, everywhere.”

By integrating Lightning as part of its payments infrastructure, Chipper Cash has positioned itself as a continental leader in Bitcoin adoption. With growing customer demand and support from Voltage, the company is showcasing how African fintechs can leapfrog outdated systems and deliver next-generation financial services today.

This post Africa’s Chipper Cash Adopts Lightning at Scale: 50% of Bitcoin Transactions Now Instant and Low-Cost first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nik.

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Saylor’s Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Inspires Global Corporations, But Not All See Premiums

Bitcoin treasury strategies are being adopted by corporations worldwide. Following the example of Michael Saylor, the founder of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the company with the largest known stack of Bitcoin in the world, others have copied his playbook and are attempting to follow suit; some are even trying to catch up.

Recently, Bitcoin Treasuries announced that over 1 million bitcoin are now held by publicly traded companies, representing more than 5% of the total Bitcoin supply, marking a historic shift for a novel asset that, until recently, was primarily owned by enthusiasts.  

The Bitcoin Treasury playbook that inspired many of these corporations was pioneered by Saylor and developed as a response to the “melting icecube” problem in traditional finance. Strategy, a lucrative cashflow-rich ‘business logic’ software company, was struggling to grow or keep up with inflation at the time, while competing with giants like Microsoft, which fought for every inch of the market with massive resources. The company’s cash reserves were thus ‘melting’ under inflation, a situation exacerbated at the time by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting monetary policy.

In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, George Mekhail, Managing Director of Bitcoin for Corporations, explained the playbook, noting it “goes back to Saylor’s origin story: he looked at his balance sheet, saw that his cash balance was eroding, and couldn’t keep up with inflation just by putting his money in bonds.”

After reviewing his options, including gold, Saylor decided that a bitcoin treasury strategy was the only way out that did not involve selling the company and retiring. On August 11, 2020, Strategy announced that the company would transition to a bitcoin standard.

Strategy “generously announced the company would buy out any shareholders at a premium if they did not like the [bitcoin] strategy. Shortly after, on December 7th, the company announced a proposed private offering of $400 million of convertible senior notes. This offering was oversubscribed and completed for a total of $650 million of senior notes due in 2025, with a 0.750% coupon. With this move, MicroStrategy borrowed over half a billion dollars at a negative real interest rate to buy the hardest money the world has ever known.” Dylan Leclair wrote in 2021. Leclair today leads a similar strategy for Metaplanet, Japan’s equivalent of Strategy in the U.S.

Fast forward to 2025, and “Non-endemic companies are coming to the same realization.” Mekhail said that of the many corporations not otherwise involved with the Bitcoin industry, many are now adopting Bitcoin into their treasuries in various ways.

The Problem

While the Bitcoin Treasury strategy has so far borne undeniable benefits to some, not all corporations have seen the same results. Some are even trading at a discount to their bitcoin holdings. Alex Wals -Membership Experience Lead  at Bitcoin For Corporations told Bitcoin Magazine that “It seems like many of the companies in the Bitcoin-sphere, seeing rapid market cap growth, are holding companies riding bull market hype. In contrast, companies like Fold and Murano, which focus on building active business operations and generating real revenue, are not receiving nearly as much attention. This is despite potentially being better positioned long term, especially in a bear market.”

Take, for example, a company like Fold Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: FLD), which recently surprised the market with a massive bitcoin treasury of 1492 BTC, placing it as the 35th biggest company when measured by total BTC holdings. Fold is a U.S. Bitcoin-centric financial services company with high-tech capabilities, offering rewards, payments, and savings options to American users through an innovative Fold app and Fold prepaid debit card. The company had been quietly accumulating bitcoin and developing its business since 2014, until its recent IPO earlier this year through a merger with FTAC Emerald Acquisition Corp. Despite its prominence as a unique and successful Bitcoin company, its Market Net Asset Value (MNAV) is currently under 1, at 0.916. In other words, the company’s public stock is trading at a lower value than its total bitcoin holdings.

Another interesting example is Murano Global Investments PLC (NASDAQ: MRNO), founded in 1996 and headquartered in London with operations centered in Mexico, is a real estate company specializing in the development, ownership, and investment in luxury hotel, resort, and commercial properties across the country, including high-profile assets like the Hyatt-operated Andaz and Vivid Grand Island Cancun resorts, the Accor-managed Mondrian Hotel in Mexico City, and projects in Baja California that emphasize tourism-driven hospitality and urban developments to capitalize on Mexico’s robust travel sector.

Over its nearly three decades, Murano has achieved notable success, reporting annual revenue of approximately 730 million MXN (around $36.5 million USD) in its latest fiscal year, with a 155% year-over-year growth. However, it faced challenges, including a net loss of 3.57 billion MXN, amid expanding operations.

In July 2025, the company announced a strategic pivot to build a Bitcoin treasury, starting with the purchase of 21 BTC valued at over $2.1 million, funded through operating cash flows and a $500 million Standby Equity Purchase Agreement (SEPA) with Yorkville Advisors, while joining the Bitcoin for Corporations initiative as a Chairman’s Circle Member to accelerate corporate adoption. Looking ahead, Murano plans to allocate a significant portion of SEPA proceeds and real estate divestitures—like sale-leaseback transactions on assets such as Grand Island Cancun condominiums—toward accumulating a robust bitcoin stack, targeting a $10 billion treasury within five years through ongoing purchases from operating profits, integration of BTC payments and rewards in its hotels, and installation of crypto ATMs to enhance guest experiences and hedge against inflation.

Today, the company has an enterprise value of nearly one billion dollars, while its stock’s market capitalization is less than half of that at 432 million, according to Yahoo Finance. The company’s stock has also suffered a significant correction since the bitcoin strategy announcement, dropping from $10.41 to $5.45 per share, suggesting investors disagree with or perhaps misunderstand the company’s pivot to Bitcoin.

Update: Murano has now made an update to its filings announcing the pause of their Bitcoin treasury strategy.

Two Types Of Bitcoin Treasury Companies

The variation in results seen across the many Bitcoin treasury companies emerging so far has lead analysts to develop a framework that categorizes these companies into two essential types, ‘pure play’ accretive companies that follow the Strategy model of maximum bitcoin accumulation, and non-accretive sometimes non-endemic companies that add bitcoin to their balance sheet as a store of value, but optimize for other business metrics outside of the Bitcoin industry.  

On the two broad categories of Bitcoin treasury companies, Mekhail explained that “Accretive companies like MicroStrategy and MetaPlanet get the most attention because they have the most volatility in their stock and therefore they have the most speculation in the retail markets, especially.” Adding that “If you’re not accretive, these companies are still very interesting. Companies like Fold, which quietly IPOed… they’re just not announcing a new Bitcoin buy every week because it’s not a core part of their strategy.”

Mekhail dug deeper into market sentiment and how investors appear to be analysing these companies saying that  “The market really isn’t as interested in how much Bitcoin you have on your balance sheet. They are more interested in things like these new metrics that we’re seeing” referring to MNAV which compares total value of bitcoin holdings versus stock market capitalization, bitcoin per share which measures how much bitcoin each share purchase should represent, or bitcoin related yield.

Chaitayan Jain, Bitcoin Strategy Manager at Strategy, reinforced this idea in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, saying that “If the company is not valued at a significant premium or even a reasonable premium to its MNAV, it is broadly down to the belief from most of the shareholders that they may not be able to outperform spot bitcoin. Be it because the underlying operating business is not generating cash flows that are being swept into Bitcoin, or the company doesn’t have the ability to access the capital markets at high velocity to raise equity or debt and buy more bitcoin to increase bitcoin per share.”

Investor Education and Market Opportunities

Companies seeking a more robust response from the market after integrating bitcoin into their treasury strategies will likely need to engage in targeted and ongoing investor education. They will have to clearly articulate their Bitcoin thesis and outline their plan to acquire more of it, particularly how they will leverage the benefits of being a cash flow-generating corporation, which can afford cheap access to credit. Jain made this very clear, noting that “It comes down to two simple ideas: access to credit in public markets, cheap credit, intelligent credit, and long-dated credit. And the second is the robustness of the operating business and the robustness of the cash flows and bitcoin not being a drag, not becoming a distraction for the company.”

Investors, on the other hand, may benefit from taking a closer look at some of these companies, which often have very long-term views on Bitcoin, presenting investors with a significant opportunity. Mekhail, speaking from his experience talking to corporations about their Bitcoin strategy, noted that “Once you understand Bitcoin, I think your expectations really are fairly long term. And you have this low time preference where you understand that this is a race. This is the digital gold rush, and it is all about speed. So expectations from companies adopting Bitcoin treasury strategies are fairly muted in that they’re here for the long haul.”

Bitcoin Magazine is wholly owned by BTC Inc., which operates Bitcoin For Corporations, a platform focused on corporate adoption of Bitcoin. BFChas a variety of relationships with Bitcoin businesses, including some of those mentioned in this article.

This post Saylor’s Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Inspires Global Corporations, But Not All See Premiums first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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Metaplanet Raises $1.4 Billion to Expand Bitcoin Treasury in Upsized International Share Offering

Metaplanet Inc. (TSE Standard: 3350) has announced the successful pricing and upsizing of its international share offering, raising JPY 205 billion (~USD 1.4 billion) to fuel its ongoing Bitcoin-first treasury strategy.

The company confirmed that 385 million new shares will be issued at JPY 553 per share, generating a total issue price of JPY 212.9 billion. After deducting fees, the total amount paid in will reach JPY 205.3 billion, of which JPY 204.1 billion will be allocated directly to Bitcoin-related initiatives.

In a statement, CEO Simon Gerovich said: “Metaplanet has finalized its international offering, upsized from 180M underwritten to 385M shares. Total raise: JPY 205B (~USD 1.4B). More Bitcoin purchases incoming.”

Expanding the Bitcoin Treasury

According to the release, JPY 183.7 billion of the proceeds will be used to purchase Bitcoin between September and October 2025, significantly increasing Metaplanet’s holdings. As of September 1, 2025, the company already holds 20,000 Bitcoin, valued at approximately JPY 322 billion.

Metaplanet first announced its treasury transformation in May 2024, committing to adopt Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset. The move was designed to hedge against Japan’s prolonged negative real interest rates, high national debt, and ongoing yen depreciation.

Income Generation from Bitcoin

The remaining JPY 20.4 billion from the offering will be allocated to the company’s Bitcoin Income Generation Business, which generates yield through Bitcoin options trading. In Q2 FY2025, this segment produced JPY 1.9 billion in revenue, highlighting its role as a complementary revenue driver to Bitcoin accumulation.

Metaplanet stated that these allocations will help the company achieve sustained profitability while strengthening its Bitcoin-focused treasury model.

Strengthening Market Position

The offering also marks a substantial increase in Metaplanet’s capital base, with capital stock and capital surplus each rising by JPY 102.6 billion. Following the issuance, the company’s total outstanding shares will increase from 755.9 million to 1.14 billion shares.

By executing one of the largest Bitcoin-focused capital raises in Asia, Metaplanet positions itself as a leading corporate pioneer in Bitcoin adoption. The firm aims to set an example for other listed companies across Japan and Asia seeking to manage inflation risks and currency devaluation through digital assets.

For those interested in hearing more about Metaplanet, check out the video below where Gerovich explains how the company became the number one traded stock in Japan:

This post Metaplanet Raises $1.4 Billion to Expand Bitcoin Treasury in Upsized International Share Offering first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nik.

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New CLARITY Act Draft Could Shield Bitcoin and Crypto Developers From Past Liability

On Friday, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee released its latest draft of the CLARITY Act (CLARITY), in which it proposes an amendment to 18 U.S. Code § 1960(a) stipulates that only crypto developers or providers that “knowingly exercise control over currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency” be treated as money transmitting businesses.

What is more, this amendment would not only protect Bitcoin and crypto developers in the wake of a bill with this language included in its passing, but it would also protect said developers retroactively.

In Section 501 of section Title V of the draft, entitled “Protecting Software Developers and Software Innovation,” it states that “This section, and the amendments made by this section, shall apply to conduct occurring before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act.”

A Positive Development for Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm

If this language is included in a version of the bill that is enacted into law, Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, who was found guilty of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business last month, stands to benefit.

Storm has alluded to the notion that he plans to appeal the guilty verdict, as per reporting by Eleanor Terrett.

If CLARITY becomes law and the language regarding retroactive developer protection is included in the draft of the bill that passes, Storm’s legal team should theoretically have no issue winning at the appellate level.

Unfortunately, if CLARITY passes with the retroactive protections included, this will not help the Samourai Wallet Developers, who accepted a plea deal for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in July.

Further Protection for Developers of Noncustodial Crypto Tech

This most recent draft of CLARITY also stipulates that developers or providers of “non-controlling” (noncustodial) crypto technology shall not be treated as money transmitting businesses under 31 U.S. Code § 5330. This would also be applied retroactively.

Non-controlling developers are defined as those who create or work on “distributed ledger service(s), that in the regular course of operations, does not have the legal right of the unilateral and independent ability to control, initiate upon demand, or effectuate transactions involving digital assets to which users are entitled, without the approval, consent, or direction of any other third party.”

The definition applies to developers of crypto services, software, or hardware that helps customers facilitate the self custody and safekeeping of digital assets.

What Comes Next?

Congress is back in session as of September 2, 2025, and the U.S. Senate Banking Committee plans to continue to prioritize CLARITY, after accepting input on the bill from many members of the crypto industry.

“This legislative draft reflects feedback from hundreds of stakeholders on a wide range of questions as part of the Request for Information (RFI) on the July discussion draft,” a spokesperson from the Senate Banking Committee told Bitcoin Magazine. “Chairman Scott, Senator Lummis, and their colleagues will continue working in a bipartisan way to deliver a final product that will protect investors, foster innovation, and keep the future of digital finance anchored in America.”

No hearings regarding the bill are currently on the Senate Banking Committee’s calendar.

This post New CLARITY Act Draft Could Shield Bitcoin and Crypto Developers From Past Liability first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Frank Corva.

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Metaplanet Buys the Dip — Securing a Massive Bitcoin Position as Price Stays Below $112,000

Japanese publicly listed giant Metaplanet has acquired an additional 136 Bitcoin worth approximately $15.2 million (¥2.251 billion), bringing its total holdings to 20,136 BTC, according to a filing with the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Monday.

The latest purchase, made at an average price of $111,666 (¥16.55 million) per Bitcoin, demonstrates the company’s aggressive accumulation strategy as it races toward its ambitious target of 100,000 BTC by 2026. Metaplanet has now invested a total of $2.08 billion (¥304.56 billion) in Bitcoin at an average Bitcoin price of $103,196 (¥15.13 million) per coin. The company’s rapid accumulation has positioned it as the sixth-largest public corporate holder of Bitcoin globally.

The firm has dramatically expanded its Bitcoin acquisition targets, having originally planned for just 10,000 BTC by 2025 and 21,000 BTC by 2026. The revised strategy now aims for 30,000 BTC by year-end 2025 and 100,000 BTC by 2026, reflecting growing institutional confidence in Bitcoin as a treasury asset.

Metaplanet’s accumulation strategy has proven successful, with the company achieving a “BTC Yield” of 487% year-to-date in 2025. This metric, which measures the percentage change in Bitcoin holdings relative to fully diluted shares, demonstrates the company’s ability to grow its Bitcoin position while managing shareholder dilution.

The trend of corporate Bitcoin adoption has accelerated dramatically in 2025, with over 200 public companies now holding Bitcoin in their treasuries. Collectively, these firms control more than 1 million BTC, representing over 4.5% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply.

Bitcoin treasury companies have become a significant force in the market. Their continued accumulation provides a strong buying base for the asset and could lead to substantial price increases if selling pressure diminishes.

To support its ambitious acquisition plans, Metaplanet recently secured shareholder approval for an $884 million capital raising initiative. The company has been actively managing its capital structure through a combination of equity issuances and bond redemptions, including multiple tranches of stock acquisition rights exercises throughout July and August 2025.

The emergence of Bitcoin treasury companies as a major market force represents a significant shift in corporate finance strategies. Recent entrants include American Bitcoin Corp., which began trading on the Nasdaq this week, and Strategy Inc., which added 4,048 BTC worth $449.3 million to its holdings last week.

The institutional adoption of Bitcoin as a treasury asset is accelerating faster than many anticipated. “Companies are increasingly viewing Bitcoin as a strategic hedge against currency devaluation and monetary uncertainty.

As the Bitcoin price continues to trade below $112,000, corporate treasury managers appear to be taking advantage of the relative price stability to build positions. With Metaplanet and other firms maintaining aggressive accumulation strategies, the competition for Bitcoin’s limited supply continues to intensify.

This post Metaplanet Buys the Dip — Securing a Massive Bitcoin Position as Price Stays Below $112,000 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Vivek Sen.

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These 3 Signals Statistically Predict Bitcoin’s Next Big Move

For much of this cycle, Global Liquidity has been one of the most accurate indicators for anticipating Bitcoin’s price action. The connection between money supply expansion and risk-asset growth has been well established, and Bitcoin has followed that script remarkably closely. Yet recently, we’ve been paying close attention to a couple of other data points that have been statistically even more accurate in predicting where Bitcoin is headed next. Together, these metrics help paint a clearer picture of whether Bitcoin’s recent stagnation represents a short-term pause or the beginning of a longer consolidation phase.

Bitcoin Price Trends Driven by Global Liquidity Shifts

The relationship between Global Liquidity, particularly M2 money supply, and Bitcoin’s price is hard to ignore. When liquidity expands, Bitcoin tends to rally; when it contracts, Bitcoin struggles.

Measured across this current cycle, the correlation stands at an impressive 88.44%. Adding a 70-day offset pushes that correlation even higher to 91.23%, meaning liquidity changes often precede Bitcoin’s moves by just over two months. This framework has proven remarkably accurate in capturing the broad trend, with cycle dips aligning with Global Liquidity tightening, and the subsequent recoveries mirroring renewed expansion.

Still, there has been a notable divergence recently. Liquidity continues to rise, signaling support for higher Bitcoin prices, yet Bitcoin itself has stalled after making new all-time highs. This divergence is worth monitoring, but it doesn’t invalidate the broader relationship. In fact, it may suggest that Bitcoin is simply lagging behind liquidity conditions, as it has done at other points in the cycle.

Stablecoin Supply Signaling Bitcoin Market Surges

While Global Liquidity reflects the broader macro environment, stablecoin supply provides a more direct view of capital ready to enter digital assets. When USDT, USDC, and other stablecoins are minted in large amounts, this represents “dry powder” waiting to rotate into Bitcoin, and eventually more speculative altcoins. Surprisingly, the correlation here is even stronger than M2 at 95.24% without any offset. Every major inflow of stablecoin liquidity has preceded or accompanied a surge in Bitcoin’s price.

What makes this metric powerful is its specificity. Unlike Global Liquidity, which covers the entire financial system, stablecoin growth is crypto-native. It represents direct potential demand within this market. Yet here, too, we are seeing a divergence. Stablecoin supply has been expanding aggressively, making new highs, while Bitcoin has consolidated. Historically, such divergences don’t last long, as this capital eventually seeks returns and flows into risk assets. Whether this suggests imminent upside or a slower rotation remains to be seen, but the strength of the correlation makes it one of the most important metrics to track in the short to medium term.

Bitcoin Predictive Power of Gold’s High-Correlation Lag

At first glance, Bitcoin and Gold don’t share a consistently strong correlation. Their relationship is choppy, sometimes moving together, other times diverging. However, when applying the same 10-week delay we applied to the Global Liquidity data, a clearer picture emerges. Across this cycle, Gold with a 70-day offset shows a 92.42% correlation with Bitcoin, higher than Global M2 itself.

The alignment has been striking. Both assets bottomed at nearly the same time, and since then, their major rallies and consolidations have followed similar trajectories. More recently, Gold has been locked in a prolonged consolidation phase, and Bitcoin appears to be mirroring this with its own choppy sideways action. If this correlation holds, Bitcoin may remain range-bound until at least mid-November, echoing Gold’s stagnant behavior. Yet with Gold now looking technically strong and primed for new all-time highs, Bitcoin could soon follow if the “Digital Gold” narrative reasserts itself.

Bitcoin’s Next Move Forecasted by Key Market Metrics

Taken together, these three metrics, Global Liquidity, stablecoin supply, and Gold, provide a powerful framework for forecasting Bitcoin’s next moves. Global M2 has remained a reliable macro anchor, especially with a 10-week lag. Stablecoin growth offers the clearest and most direct signal of incoming crypto demand, and its accelerating expansion suggests mounting pressure for higher prices. Meanwhile, Gold’s delayed correlation provides a surprising but valuable predictive lens, pointing toward a period of consolidation before a potential breakout later in the coming weeks.

In the short term, this confluence of signals suggests that Bitcoin may continue to chop sideways, mirroring Gold’s stagnation even as liquidity expands in the background. But if Gold breaks to new highs and stablecoin issuance continues at its current pace, Bitcoin could be setting up for a powerful end-of-year rally. For now, patience is key, but the data suggests that the underlying conditions remain favorable for Bitcoin’s long-term trajectory.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions.

This post These 3 Signals Statistically Predict Bitcoin’s Next Big Move first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Matt Crosby.

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The Revolution Won’t Have Good UX

Adam Curry is the modern-day Prometheus. His discovery of podcasting and sharing it with the world was as significant of a development as when Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to humans. Podcasting has quickly evolved into one of the most popular ways to communicate valuable information, completely disintermediating the CIA-controlled media apparatus. While Bitcoin seeks to separate money and state, podcasting seeks to separate syndicated news organizations and information. 

Giving the world podcasting was not enough for Curry as he is now once again seeking to wrestle control from the gods by allowing individuals to engage in what he coined the “value-for-value economy” by allowing podcasters to receive Lightning payments. 

The fiat value-for-value economy is massive. There are tools like YouTube super chats, PayPal, Patreon, and more that allow content creators to receive immense amounts of value from their audience without having to rely solely on sponsors. 

The Bitcoin value-for-value economy is much smaller, but in my opinion as a credentialed journalist, significantly more important. The first value-for-value use of bitcoin was when WikiLeaks was kicked off the fiat payment rails. Exposing war criminals is one of the core responsibilities of journalists, yet is an unapproved activity by the parasitic ruling class. One of my mottos is journalism dies in compliance, and building the entire media apparatus on top of systems that rely on permission to operate will completely kill any ability for any real information to be transmitted. 

In recent months, through the revelations on USAID funding of media, the playbook for how the media apparatus is controlled has been laid bare for everyone to see. The systems for controlling and manipulating information are sophisticated and often aren’t apparent. For many media companies to get any notable funding, they have to bend the knee to the ruling class, sacrifice any dignity they have, and perform fellatio on individuals who probably had close ties to Jeffrey Epstein. This is why I left traditional media to form The Bugle, the world’s premier news agency. 

There are many myths about the institution of journalism. Many believe that journalists are supposed to tell the truth, bring useful information to individuals, and expose wrongdoings. People who believe those myths likely have not interacted with many journalists. I would argue that the institution of journalism is more about engaging in covert propaganda, hidden behind the cover (myth) of having some moral high ground. 

The majority of journalists are individuals who are mercenaries for whoever will pay them. 

Following the trailblazing efforts of Adam Curry and Julian Assange, The Bugle has operated entirely off a value-for-value model, using bitcoin as the main funding mechanism. The product we are selling is our content. We do not operate as a marketing agency for companies that attempt to sell products to our consumers, because that means the content becomes secondary. In order to receive value from your consumers, you first have to produce something valuable enough. 

The challenge of going entirely Bitcoin is that you are asking your audience to wade into the realm of bad UX. Lightning has been one of the backbones for monetization for The Bugle as micropayments are great for users looking to send small payments. 

Some may claim that tools like Fountain, Nostr, BTCPay Server, and other tools that allow content consumers to send bitcoin to content creators lack the UX necessary to make a difference. This seems to be the general consensus. “The revolution needs to have good UX for it to even happen” is, in my opinion, flawed thinking. The bad UX of these platforms allows them to predominantly be occupied by actual revolutionaries and scares away the faint of heart, who find using their brain even the slightest an obstacle so insurmountable that they end up watching Netflix instead. 

At The Bugle, we are not competing with Netflix. We are not catering to those who do not have the willingness or capacity to think. We are catering to the few, the proud, the revolutionaries. According to our analytics, 90% of our podcast listeners use Fountain. We are limiting our potential audience growth by focusing on promoting our content on platforms with poor user experience, but in doing so, we are targeting those that actually matter. The Bugle is not for your boomer father who believes that smoking cigarettes is bad for you, believes in the sanctity of institutions, and has a lot of opinions on things he has done zero research on. No, we are catering to those who have done the proof-of-work and have an opinion that actually matters. 

Bitcoin originally had horrible UX and therefore was only used by revolutionaries. Those who were mining thousands of bitcoin on the CPUs in the very beginning may be(come) some of the richest individuals in human history. Satoshi did not pause the revolution in order to first implement good UX. He knew that the NPCs who were terrified of using command lines would eventually come but that in order for the project to be successful, it had to start with those who were willing to wade into the unknown. 

Our society lacks personal responsibility. It lacks accountability. It does not value the individual. It preaches altruism and focuses on the “common good”. All of this results from demands for good UX. As a result, the weakest (gayest) rise to the top. Everything is based on a popularity contest determined by the least exceptional among us. The idea of having a real meritocracy is threatening to those who refuse to actually do any work, or who find it challenging to organize brain cells for tasks other than superficial pleasure. 

I reject these premises. I believe that we can build a valuable media company while using bad UX. I believe we can have more impact broadly by seeking to exclusively target those with the capacity to wade into nuance and go beyond brain-dead groupthink. My whole life I have hungered for content that has depth and meaning. Sitting on the sidelines hoping that someone else steps to the plate is not the mindset of someone who matters. I will not spend my time trying to convince stupid people not to be stupid. If I did that, it would be because I do not value my time and do not value myself. Instead, I will spend my time trying to inspire the revolutionaries, the doers, the people who are demoralized because they feel isolated in a sea of mediocrity. 

My name is Richard Greaser,

And I am the John Galt of journalism. 

Don’t miss your chance to own The Lightning Issue — featuring an exclusive interview with Lightning co-creator Tadge Dryja. It dives deep into Bitcoin’s most powerful scaling layer. Limited run. Only available while supplies last.

This piece is an article featured in the latest Print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Lightning Issue. We’re sharing it here to show the ideas explored throughout the full issue.

This post The Revolution Won’t Have Good UX first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Richard Greaser.

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The DAT Delusion: Why Only Bitcoin Belongs on Corporate Balance Sheets

1. The Rise of the DAT: A Symptom of Shallow Understanding

As Bitcoin adoption by public companies accelerates, imitators are inevitable. The latest trend? DATs — “Digital Asset Treasuries” — which seek to replicate the success of Bitcoin treasury companies by allocating reserves to altcoins like Ethereum or Dogecoin.

From the outside, the surface-level pitch might seem similar: acquire a digital asset, move early, build a treasury strategy, issue equity or dehttps://bitcoinmagazine.com/bitcoin-for-corporations/how-bitcoin-reduces-counterparty-risk-in-corporate-treasury-strategybt, and attempt to capture long-term upside and reflexive flows. But beneath the surface, the comparison collapses.

In recent months, several companies have made headlines for pivoting to DAT models:

• CleanCore Solutions plunged 60% after unveiling a $175M Dogecoin treasury plan.
• Bit Digital (BTBT) wound down its Bitcoin mining operations to become an Ethereum-only staking and treasury company.
• Spirit Blockchain Capital and Dogecoin Cash Inc. launched DOGE-centric treasury strategies and lost over 70% YTD.

These moves aren’t just risky — they reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes Bitcoin uniquely suited to serve as a treasury reserve asset.

2. Bitcoin Is Money. Tokens Are Venture Bets.

Bitcoin is not a tech platform or a product roadmap. It is money — purpose-built, neutral, leaderless, and maximally conservative in its evolution. Its rules are set in stone, its issuance schedule immutably locked, and its design fiercely resistant to change.

Altcoins like Ethereum or Dogecoin, by contrast, are better understood as venture-stage software projects masquerading as money. They are:

• Governed by foundations or small groups of core developers
• Subject to frequent, sometimes radical, protocol changes
• Actively managed to optimize for new feature adoption, not monetary stability
• Closely tied to charismatic founders and foundation capital structures

From a capital stewardship perspective, this is the difference between:

• Allocating reserves to a sovereign, apolitical monetary instrument
• Speculating on the long-term success of a VC-style technology platform

One is purpose-built for value preservation. The other is a proxy for early-stage risk.

3. Time Horizon Inversion: Bitcoin Aligns, Altcoins Mismatch

A corporate treasury’s role is not to chase yield — it is to preserve and grow shareholder value over long durations. Public companies are rewarded for resilience, discipline, and clear capital frameworks that hold up across cycles.

Bitcoin’s design aligns with this. Its properties reward conviction over time:

• Supply is fixed: 21 million, with issuance halving every four years
• Market access is global and constant: no exchange hours or gatekeepers
• Liquidity deepens over time as adoption grows
• Volatility compresses over longer horizons

Altcoins invert this logic. They:

• Inflate supply through unlock schedules and protocol changes
• Routinely shift consensus models (e.g. ETH’s move to proof-of-stake)
• Depend on speculative growth narratives to maintain interest
• Lack predictable issuance and upgrade paths

This mismatch creates tension for treasuries. The longer you hold a token, the more governance, execution, and regulatory risk you accrue. It becomes harder — not easier — to defend the allocation.

Bitcoin, by contrast, becomes easier to justify over time. It’s the only digital asset where deeper holding reduces—not increases—tail risk.

4. What Could Go Wrong: Risks of Building on Altcoin Treasuries

For public companies, capital strategy must prioritize durability, auditability, and market trust. Allocating to altcoins introduces risks that are antithetical to those goals.

• Protocol Uncertainty: Tokens like Ethereum undergo frequent technical upgrades that can introduce bugs, change economics, or expose validators to new forms of slashing or MEV risk. Corporate treasuries require stability — not ongoing protocol experimentation.
• Governance and Capture Risk: Many altcoins are governed by foundations or small teams. Key protocol decisions may reflect the interests of insiders or early investors, not long-term holders. Companies risk being exposed to governance forks, roadmap pivots, or consensus drama.
• Regulatory Uncertainty: Bitcoin has been widely acknowledged by U.S. regulators as a commodity. Most altcoins occupy a murkier legal territory — and many are actively under investigation or pending litigation. A sudden classification as a security could trigger forced divestment, legal penalties, or reputational damage.
• Custody and Infrastructure Limitations: While Bitcoin benefits from mature institutional custody solutions, many altcoins do not. Staking contracts, wrapped tokens, and DeFi-based custodial layers add smart contract risk and reduce auditability. This weakens the balance sheet rather than strengthening it.
• Narrative Fragility: When price appreciation slows or reverses, the underlying thesis of an altcoin treasury often collapses. Without monetary fundamentals to fall back on, the “strategic” story devolves into a speculative one — and boards, auditors, and shareholders begin asking hard questions.

Building a corporate treasury on top of tokens with malleable rules, weak settlement assurances, and governance opacity is not bold — it’s reckless. Bitcoin is the exception not just because it came first, but because its architecture is the only one built to last.

5. Bitcoin Is the Bedrock

Public companies that adopt Bitcoin are not making a bet on crypto. They’re upgrading the foundation of their capital structure with an asset that is:

• Non-sovereign: Immune to political interference or monetary debasement
• Finite: Capped at 21 million, with no centralized authority to inflate supply
• Verifiable: Every unit auditable, every transaction immutable
• Accessible: Liquid and tradable in every major jurisdiction
• Battle-tested: Operating flawlessly for over 15 years with no bailouts or downtime

Bitcoin’s uniqueness isn’t ideological — it’s structural. And that structure is what enables it to serve as a modern balance sheet anchor in a time of currency volatility, debt saturation, and institutional distrust.

Disclaimer: This content was written on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations. This article is intended solely for informational purposes and should not be interpreted as an invitation or solicitation to acquire, purchase or subscribe for securities.

This post The DAT Delusion: Why Only Bitcoin Belongs on Corporate Balance Sheets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nick Ward.

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Trump Family Backed American Bitcoin To Start Trading On Nasdaq Today

American Bitcoin Corp. (ABTC) is set to make its debut on the Nasdaq today, marking another significant milestone in the growing intersection of traditional finance and Bitcoin. The company, backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., represents a unique Bitcoin accumulation platform that combines mining operations with strategic market purchases.

The company’s public listing comes through a stock-for-stock merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, Inc., establishing what aims to be one of America’s premier Bitcoin infrastructure platforms. The venture is majority-owned by Hut 8 Corp. (Nasdaq | TSX: HUT), which contributed the majority of its Bitcoin mining ASICs in exchange for an 80% stake in the new entity.

“Today, American Bitcoin becomes a premier public vehicle for investors seeking scalable, singular exposure to the defining asset class of our time,” said Eric Trump, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of American Bitcoin.  “Our Nasdaq debut marks a historic milestone in bringing Bitcoin into the core of U.S. capital markets and advancing our mission to make America the undisputed leader of the global Bitcoin economy.”

The company’s business model employs a dual accumulation strategy, integrating self-mining operations with opportunistic Bitcoin purchases. This approach provides flexibility to respond to market conditions while maintaining a structural cost advantage over pure accumulation vehicles through mining operations that acquire Bitcoin below market prices.

The Trump family’s entry into the Bitcoin mining sector comes amid a broader trend of corporate Bitcoin adoption. The launch follows several major corporate treasury announcements, including Strategy Inc.’s recent $449.3 million Bitcoin purchase.

Donald Trump Jr., a stockholder in American Bitcoin, emphasized the company’s alignment with American values: “American Bitcoin embodies the values that define American strength: freedom, transparency, and independence. With our Nasdaq listing, we are elevating this mission onto the global stage, giving investors a vehicle we believe will strengthen the U.S. financial system and help build a more resilient national economy.”

The company’s partnership with Hut 8 provides access to scaled colocation infrastructure, allowing ABTC to mine Bitcoin without significant capital expenditure on proprietary data centers. This arrangement is designed to maximize operational efficiency and enable greater capital allocation toward scaling hash rate and increasing Bitcoin reserves. The Trump family’s Bitcoin and crypto ventures have expanded rapidly, encompassing various crypto initiatives.

“With the backing of the public markets, we believe American Bitcoin is now positioned to set the standard in Bitcoin accumulation,” said Asher Genoot, Executive Chairman of American Bitcoin and CEO of Hut 8 Corp.

The launch of American Bitcoin reflects the accelerating trend of institutional Bitcoin adoption, with several major corporations announcing significant Bitcoin treasury strategies in recent months. This movement has gained momentum as companies seek to diversify their treasury holdings and gain exposure to Bitcoin.

This post Trump Family Backed American Bitcoin To Start Trading On Nasdaq Today first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Vivek Sen.

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Bitcoin Price (BTC) Closes August Bearishly — Eyes Now on $100K Support

Bitcoin (BTC) begins September under pressure after a brutal August close — now all eyes are on $100K. Bitcoin closed the month of August with a disappointing week for the bulls. After making a new all-time high in mid-August at just over $124,000, the bitcoin price has put in three red candle closes in a row on the weekly chart. This past week’s candle closed down near the lows, swinging momentum clearly over to the bears. 

The MACD oscillator confirmed a bearish cross on the weekly close as well, which should help maintain downward pressure entering this week. RSI is now sitting in a relatively neutral position just above the 50 line, but at its lowest level since mid-April.

This first week of September will see bitcoin heading down to test the support levels from the May-to-June price consolidation. Bulls will be looking for the high-volume node around $104,000-105,000 to hold price, and ideally prevent this week’s candle from closing below that level. Bears will be trying to push the price down through this support back to the key 1.618 Fibonacci extension level from the 2022 bear market at $102,000. Closing this week in the $102k vicinity or lower would be very bad for the bulls, as it would threaten to break below the infamous laser eyes level of $100,000 and test the last major swing low at $98,000. 

Taking out $100,000 to the downside would give a lot of weight to the “long-term top is in” thesis. $96,000 is basically the last line of defense here for the bulls if price manages to slip through all those upper support levels.

So heading into this week, look for buyers to try to step in and turn things around at the $105,000 level. Bulls will be looking to right the ship this week and put in some sort of reversal candle to turn things around. But for now, the bears are in full control and will look to continue the selling pressure into September.

Terminology Guide:

Bulls/Bullish: Buyers or investors expecting the price to go higher.

Bears/Bearish: Sellers or investors expecting the price to go lower.

Support or support level: A level at which price should hold for the asset,at least initially. The more touches on support, the weaker it gets and the more likely it is to fail to hold the price.

Resistance or resistance level: Opposite of support.  The level which is likely to reject the price, at least initially. The more touches at resistance, the weaker it gets and the more likely it is to fail to hold back the price.

Fibonacci Retracements and Extensions: Ratios based on what is known as the golden ratio, a universal ratio pertaining to growth and decay cycles in nature. The golden ratio is based on the constants Phi (1.618) and phi (0.618).

Oscillators: Technical indicators that vary over time, but typically remain within a band between set levels. Thus, they oscillate between a low level (typically representing oversold conditions) and a high level (typically representing overbought conditions). E.G. Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Moving Average Convergence-Divergence (MACD).

MACD Oscillator: Moving Average Convergence-Divergence is a momentum oscillator that subtracts the difference between 2 moving averages to indicate trend as well as momentum.

RSI Oscillator: The Relative Strength Index is a momentum oscillator that moves between 0 and 100. It measures the speed of the price and changes in the speed of the price movements. When RSI is over 70, it is considered to be overbought. When RSI is below 30, it is considered to be oversold.

This post Bitcoin Price (BTC) Closes August Bearishly — Eyes Now on $100K Support first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Ethan Greene – Feral Analysis.

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OpenSats Grant Fuels Bitcoin-Safe’s Secure Multisig Wallet Launch with Hardware Focus

Bitcoin-Safe, an open-source Bitcoin savings wallet, is now available, designed for families, individuals, and companies seeking secure, long-term Bitcoin storage. Focused on multisig security and requiring hardware wallets for mainnet operations, it distinguishes itself from other desktop wallets like Electrum and Sparrow. Supported by a one-year OpenSats grant awarded in March 2025, Bitcoin-Safe combines robust security with a redesigned user interface in its latest version, 1.5.0, released on September 1, 2025.

Development and OpenSats Support

Developed for over two and a half years by Andreas Griffin, Bitcoin-Safe aims to simplify multisig setups and reduce reliance on Electrum servers. “I started over two and a half years ago with this wallet and I had two goals: to make multisig easier and to not need to rely on Electrum servers,” Griffin told Bitcoin Magazine. The OpenSats grant, running from March 2025 to March 2026, supports these efforts. Built on Bitcoin Dev Kit (BDK), the wallet’s open-source code is auditable on GitHub and installable clients are available for free at bitcoin-safe.org/download, compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Multisig, Hardware Wallet Security and Coin Control

Bitcoin-Safe enforces hardware wallets for mainnet, prohibiting software seeds to mitigate security risks. “For savings, there is just no way around a hardware wallet,” Griffin stated, emphasizing compatibility with major hardware devices via QR, USB, or SD card. This sets Bitcoin-Safe apart from wallets allowing software seeds, prioritizing security for significant savings and minimizing ‘foot guns’ – features that users can easily hurt themselves with.

The wallet’s multisig setup wizard generates PDFs with wallet descriptors, including send and receive tests for verification. “After you’re done with this wizard, you can be sure that it’s set up correctly,” Griffin said. This ensures reliable configuration, making multisig accessible without compromising security.

Using the Nostr protocol, Bitcoin-Safe syncs transaction and address labels across devices encrypted end to end. “I created a protocol on top of Nostr to link these computers and synchronize the labels seamlessly,” Griffin noted. Multisig participants can share Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs) with one click, with relays storing encrypted messages for asynchronous access.

Coin categories separate funds, such as KYC exchange withdrawals and private coins, to prevent unintended transaction linkages. “You have to select the source of the funds, so you don’t accidentally link them,” Griffin said, supporting user privacy.

User Interface and Experience

Version 1.5.0 introduces a new interface, developed with @deSign-r. “The designer who joined the project really contributes massively,” Griffin stated. Features include a sidebar for managing multiple wallets, updated transaction views for sending and signing PSBTs, and a mempool visualization showing block and fee data.

The wallet adds keyboard shortcuts, tooltips, and clear error messages. Bug fixes improve functionality, ensuring accessibility for novice and advanced users.

Bitcoin-Safe supports real-time conversion for 123 fiat currencies, integrated into the interface. It also converts Bitcoin to gold or silver values in ounces and grams. Real-time mempool alerts notify users of transaction propagation. “It’s an opt-in feature for existing users, opt-out for new installations,” Griffin said, with customizable network settings.

Users can unlock multiple wallets with a single encryption password. “When multiple wallets share the same encryption password, users need to enter it only once,” Griffin explained. Nostr’s Chat&Sync feature enables remote PSBT coordination for multisig participants.

Community and Accessibility

Bitcoin-Safe supports languages like English, Chinese, and Spanish, with translations via Weblate. Users can test with tBTC, report bugs, or donate via Lightning or onchain. Engagement occurs through Chorus.community and X accounts (@BitcoinSafe, @BitcoinSafeCN), with documentation at bitcoin-safe.org.

Future Development: Compact Block Filters

Bitcoin-Safe plans to integrate compact block filters in 2025 to replace Electrum servers. “My plans are to replace [Electrum servers] with compact block filters to fetch blockchain data directly from Bitcoin Core nodes,” Griffin said, aiming for enhanced privacy and server independence.

This post OpenSats Grant Fuels Bitcoin-Safe’s Secure Multisig Wallet Launch with Hardware Focus first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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At Bitcoin Asia Everything Was Upside Down

The suits are here, and Bitcoiners are the new hype in financial markets.

That’s been the story for most of this year, culminating spectacularly in the bitcoin price plunge during Bitcoin Asia 2025. Bitcoin, the most vocal vote-of-no-confidence in the permissioned fiat monetary system is now rushing headfirst back into traditional finance.

Cypherpunks, morphed into suitcoiners, have found their ultimate expression as stonkcoiners.

The rebellious teenagers repented their sins. The lost son has returned — in glamorous, greedy glory.

We, the nerdy outsiders who were once dead-set on building a new and improved world have become cheerleaders for regulated, permissioned securities — neatly levered up and financially engineered for maximum bitcoin-per-share. The laws of financial gravity rudely shoved aside, even the staunchest rebellious hacker has given up most of their principles now that Wall Street is paying $2, $3, or $5 for a dollar of bitcoin.

And at Bitcoin Asia in Hong Kong, everything else was upside-down, too. The crowd came out, not for the self-custody or cypherpunk-y Bitcoin talks, but for the political hotshots and financial engineers. (The word “sycophants” comes to mind.)  

The balance sheet is becoming the P&L, said Alexandre Laizet, CEO of Europe’s largest treasury company on stage. He wasn’t merely saying that treasury companies are now banks, using their balance sheets to eke out profits; he meant that the only thing that matters to bitcoin treasury companies is the balance sheet itself. Profits are of no consequence when you’ve got bitcoin-per-infinitely printable share.

“This is what you should do as a rational player in the market.”

Some 200 companies, with Strategy and Metaplanet (the main sponsor for Bitcoin Asia) as the most vocal poster boys for the movement, are vacuuming capital markets for cheap fiat to plunge into bitcoin. Everyone is hitting records everywhere — of audiences and viewers, of attendees and sales. Everyone who’s been around Bitcoinland feels the energy, the building, the never-ending factory floor of shipping and building. It’s never been easier to grasp Bitcoin and we’ve never had as many people here…

…yet the price keeps meandering its way down from a hyped $125,000 to the $118,204 entry point for Nakamoto’s 679-million-dollar purchase to $111,000-ish around conference time, before plunging to a low of below $108,000 — in direct tandem with the bullish speakers on stage.

The drone show on Thursday, lighting up the Hong Kong evening with awesome Bitcoin graphics in the sky, couldn’t have been more symbolic for how everything is upside down. Displaying a powerful 21-divided-by-infinity sign that made absolutely no sense, it was a directly inverted version of Knut Svanholm‘s famous everything-divided-by-21-million claim:

All 20,000-odd of us in attendance need urgent bitcoin price therapy after days on end watching bullish proclamations on the Nakamoto Stage disproven and undermined by the large-font price chart behind them.

From the Nakamoto Stage in Hong Kong, David Bailey sat confidently and celebratory, applauding our great efforts and successes as Bitcoiners — while the audience stared at the large, SALT-sponsored bitcoin price on the screen behind him continually plunging downward, eradicating an ungodly amount of wealth with each downward flick.

The dissonance couldn’t have been greater between the bullish words said on stage, the impressive and plausible-sounding gospel from the dozen or so treasury companies present, and the harsh reality of an ever-decreasing price.

It’s almost like the more David Bailey et al. talk and pump their bitcoin-acquisition vehicle stocks, the worse our market becomes and the lower the price goes.

Maybe Mr. Bailey just has much bigger cojones than me, or a YOLO recklessness far surpassing anything humanity has ever seen, but had I just burned some $60 million of investor money with nothing to show for it, I’d be more humble and skittish, downtrodden and skeptic.

Price is in the pudding, and it’s really not that nice a cake.

It’s symbolic, too, that here in Hong Kong, 2025 is the year of the snake — and we get the cypherpunks’ crowning achievement slithering its way across financialized treasury companies, eating their own tails in the process.

We’re out here on the latest stop of the Bitcoin festival tour, astonished to see how all that was once sacred has been profaned: Everything is upside down.

This is Joakim Book, reporting from a world that no longer makes sense.

This post At Bitcoin Asia Everything Was Upside Down first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Joakim Book.

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The Ethics of Immutability

A common refrain has emerged in the Bitcoin community: fix the money, fix the world. While there is every reason to be optimistic about Bitcoin’s impact on society it is not enough to rely on lines of code to fix our world. Rather, in this essay on the ethics of immutability, I argue that fixing oneself is the true revolution, and in turn, collectively, as actors in this global network, we are the revolution of change.

Bitcoin was designed to be decentralized, censorship-resistant, open source and unconfiscatable, qualities that set it apart from traditional banking and financial infrastructure. Bitcoin’s architecture means that no central authority can arbitrarily seize funds or block transactions on the network. The transparent, permissionless nature of its code allows anyone to participate without needing approval from intermediaries or gatekeepers. It empowers individuals to transact and store value beyond the reach of censorship, monetary debasement and financial repression by governments and banks.

These attributes have led many to view Bitcoin not just as a new form of money, but as an instrument of freedom in the digital age. In “On Revolution,” Hannah Arendt states 

“the life of a free man needed the presence of others. Freedom itself needed therefore a place where people could come together.” 

It is my hope that the coming together just might be a global, decentralized monetary network.

The framework and means by which we can serve as the instantiation of digital freedom has already been given to us — the actions of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s creator.

As Bitcoiners we often ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be a Bitcoiner?” Generally, responses include simply holding bitcoin, sending transactions, believing in the value of sound money, running a node or any combination thereof. 

Of course, these are necessary but insufficient, I argue, to be a Bitcoiner. One is not a Christian simply because one owns a Bible. Beliefs, and more importantly, one’s actions are necessary to uphold the ethos of Bitcoin. The community has not given enough credence to the fact that Satoshi gave up exorbitant wealth and fame so that we could freely take part in this network. It is this legacy and what it means for the users of Bitcoin that I explore in this paper. We must carry on this spirit of Satoshi by respecting and promoting the freedom of others, if we are to truly fix the world. 

The Immutability Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto

By walking away, Satoshi Nakamoto embodied the principle that Bitcoin was meant to belong to its community, not to its creator or a central authority. Equally striking is Satoshi’s decision to remain anonymous. To this day, the true identity of Satoshi is unknown, and the creator’s forum posts and emails never revealed personal details. This anonymity was very much in line with the Cypherpunk ethos that influenced Bitcoin’s development, a culture that values privacy and letting ideas speak for themselves rather than relying on authority. Satoshi himself was explicit about avoiding any cult of personality. When a media frenzy in 2014 led to the mistaken “doxxing” of a Californian man (Dorian Nakamoto) as Bitcoin’s founder, the real Satoshi seemingly resurfaced online just to post the message, “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.” Beyond that clarification, the inventor never sought fame or credit. 

One of the most powerful symbols of Satoshi Nakamoto’s legacy is the fact that he never cashed in his bitcoin holdings. It is estimated that Satoshi mined roughly 1 million BTC (bitcoin) in the early days of the network. Remarkably, none of those coins have ever been moved or spent — they remain sitting untouched on the blockchain. At today’s market value, that stash would make Satoshi one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet. Yet the creator chose to leave that fortune alone. We do not know for certain why Satoshi never spent his coins. But the effect of this abstention has been profound. By not profiting from his invention, Satoshi demonstrated integrity and belief in the project’s long-term vision. Almost like a relic or monument on the blockchain, those unspent coins have become a reminder of his contribution and prove that the founder did not seek personal enrichment.

In the Bitcoin community, this fact is often cited to underline the purity of Bitcoin’s origins. The monetary system Satoshi created was decentralized and fair, giving early adopters an opportunity by not allowing the creator to abuse any special advantage. Satoshi actively gave up certain freedoms (like the freedom to cash out riches or the freedom to bask in fame) for the sake of Bitcoin’s success and credibility. This personal sacrifice set a powerful ethical example and established many of the values the Bitcoin community still holds dear: decentralization, open participation, neutrality and the idea that principles matter more than individual gain.

Satoshi’s coins, sitting untouched on the ledger, are an immutable timestamp of those values, reminding us that the founder’s commitment to freedom was not just in words but in deeds. This legacy invites us to reflect on the kind of community Bitcoin was meant to foster, and it provides a real-world segue into broader philosophical questions about freedom and responsibility, which, as Bitcoiners, we must consider as the instantiation of Bitcoin’s embodiment of freedom.

Bitcoin and the Concept of Freedom

What do we mean by “freedom,” especially in a social context? Philosophers have grappled with this question for centuries. One particularly illuminating perspective comes from the 20th-century existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, whose work “The Ethics of Ambiguity” (1947) explores the nature of freedom and the ethical responsibilities it entails. Beauvoir’s insights can help us draw parallels between Bitcoin’s ethos and a broader philosophy of reciprocal freedom and autonomy.

A key idea in Beauvoir’s ethics is that freedom is a shared, interdependent condition. She rejects the notion that freedom is simply the ability for an isolated individual to do anything they please. Instead, true freedom is “a positive and constructive process” that inevitably involves other human beings. One person’s freedom is enhanced by the freedom of others, and curtailed when others are oppressed. I cannot be truly free, she argues, if I live in a world where others are enslaved or silenced, because I exist in a human world of relationships and my own possibilities are intertwined with those of my fellow human beings. The authors of “Resistance Money” proclaim this ethos in their words:

“Cypherpunk code empowers individuals. But, with money, writing code is not enough. For money is, as we’ve seen, a network good. Bitcoin isn’t DIY money – do it yourself. It is, DIT – do it together. Using bitcoin means joining users in supporting resistance money for those who need it, with or without permission or cooperation of authorities.”

This logic of reciprocity means that we each have a responsibility to strive for the freedom of all, not just our own personal freedom. Beauvoir famously writes that the freedom of others must be respected and they must be helped to free themselves — how one might be freed by the ability to use a censorship-resistant monetary network, for example. It is not enough to refrain from coercing others; an authentic ethics calls us to actively support and expand the freedom of those around us. This could mean educating those who lack knowledge, fighting against unjust political structures that oppress people or working to alleviate poverty and other conditions that limit an individual’s opportunities. Freedom, in Beauvoir’s conception, is inherently social and cooperative. 

This philosophy resonates strongly with the ethos of open source, decentralized networks like Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s value proposition is not just that, “I individually control my money,” but also that everyone can participate as equals under the same rules. Contrast that structure with the status quo of Cantillon effects whose default is to embrace moral hazard. 

The Bitcoin network becomes more secure and useful as more people use it (more nodes, more miners, more liquidity), which is an illustration of freedom being mutually reinforcing. Rather than viewing freedom as a zero-sum game, modern thinkers like Beauvoir see it as inherently social and mutually enhancing, an insight that can apply to a monetary network as well. A decentralized currency works precisely because it is open and accessible to all; my financial freedom is bolstered by others joining and expanding the network effects. As more users adopt bitcoin, it becomes harder for any one authority to censor transactions for anyone — network decentralization is a form of reciprocal empowerment for its users. This reflects Beauvoir’s point that a person’s freedom can only extend itself by means of the freedom of others. 

True freedom is therefore reciprocal and we can see an analogue in Bitcoin’s philosophy: If a participant in the network (say a miner or node) tries to censor or cheat others, they undermine the very system that guarantees their own financial autonomy. Indeed, Bitcoin’s consensus rules make it so that acting to censor or double-spend will only harm the attacker — honest nodes will reject invalid blocks, and the attacker wastes resources. The network is structured to reward cooperation (following the rules) and make interference futile. While Beauvoir was talking about human rights and ethical relations, the parallel is that freedom to transact, like freedom of speech, works best when universally upheld. No one is truly “free” in a monetary sense if a central authority can freeze their account on a whim. Importantly, preventing others from transacting (for example, lobbying to censor certain addresses or users) would eventually jeopardize one’s own security and freedom on the network. 

It is important to acknowledge my words have not been written in the years following WWII; that despite the current tumult, American life is not likely to see a full-scale kinetic war as we did in the past century. 

We must then ask ourselves, what does revolution look like when there is no oppressor? And what does reciprocal freedom mean in 21st-century American life? While one could argue, like Arendt, that we live under an oligarchy, fiat as an economic system has no king or dictator to overthrow. A contemporary view of freedom warrants a dynamic approach to answering this question. Challenging oppression when there is no king is akin to technological creative destruction — a process not necessitating brute force but replacing the system from without.

American life is dominated by systems of oppression that tacitly affect our freedoms. It is futile to contrast the year 2025 to a century ago where a question of freedoms could more easily break down into simple positive and negative binaries. Rather, the restrictions to one’s freedoms in contemporary American life become more nebulous. Again, rendering questions such as: What freedoms are restricted when paid advertising affects our purchasing habits, social media controls the algorithms, processed foods affect our cognition, Citizens United lessens our influence in our democracy or for our current purposes when a financial and economic system decreases purchasing power and concentrates wealth by design? 

We live at a time of tremendous abundance and security, so it is easy to slip into passive engagement with community and political life; it is easy to slip into the way of being of a serious man (Beauvoir’s archetype of a person who avoids the responsibility of reciprocal freedom by following strict values as if they were fixed truths making them prone to justifying harmful actions in the name of their “sacred” cause). 

de Beauvoir’s also introduces a moral imperative: Solidarity in the pursuit of freedom. It’s not enough to avoid doing harm; we are called to get involved and work to change conditions that deny others their freedom. She observed that authentic ethics entails helping others expand their scope of action and choice. This could be read (in our context) as a call to support technologies or movements that empower people who have been excluded from traditional systems. Consider how Bitcoin has been used by dissidents, journalists or citizens in countries with capital controls and hyperinflation. Because Bitcoin is censorship-resistant and borderless, it allowed, for example, WikiLeaks to receive donations in 2010 when PayPal and banks (under government pressure) blocked funds. It has helped people in Venezuela or Zimbabwe bypass destructive monetary policies and hold savings in a currency that their rulers cannot debase. 

During the Russian-Ukraine war in 2022, Bitcoin donations were sent directly to Ukraine when traditional channels were constrained, a demonstration of the network’s neutrality and availability. It has also provided a way for migrant workers and refugees to carry and send assets when the banking system shuts them out.

All these cases reflect individuals reclaiming freedom in the face of oppression or hardship, aided by a global community of Bitcoin users and developers who maintain the network. To draw a parallel to Beauvoir: Those who contribute to Bitcoin’s development or adoption in repressive environments are, in a sense, helping others to free themselves. They are engaging in a form of solidarity that aligns with the ethical vision Beauvoir puts forth — a “concrete commitment to the freedom of our fellow men,” as she described it, which means actively standing against structures that limit others’ autonomy. Viewing Bitcoin through Beauvoir’s existentialist lens highlights the idea of reciprocal freedom. Bitcoin works as a system of augmented freedom not because it lets an individual escape society, but because it creates a new kind of society, one built on voluntary participation, equal rules and mutual empowerment rather than top-down control. It exemplifies the principle that my financial freedom is inextricable from yours. It challenges the community to uphold not only their own rights, but the rights of others, keeping the network open and accessible. As Beauvoir insisted, freedom gains meaning only when we devote ourselves to defending and enlarging the freedom of all.

Beauvoir’s sentiment is echoed in José Ortega y Gasset’s, “The Revolt of the Masses,” who calls us to understand that

“every destiny is dramatic, tragic in its deepest meaning. Whoever has not felt the danger of our times palpitating under his hand, has not really penetrated to the vitals of destiny, he has merely pricked its surface.”

While Ortega y Gasset applies this sentiment to the perceived treachery of his mass man it is nonetheless a statement of considerable importance. Beauvoir asks us to will ourselves free, in order to free others. The possibility of doing so is only met when the will seeks an understanding of the destiny of others, including the mass man. We understand the ambiguity of our own nature and destiny but freedom lies in the taking-on of the ambiguity of others.

The uncertainty of our nature is further illuminated by Craig Warmke in his paper, “Bitcoin Behind the Veil,” where he examines Bitcoin through John Harsanyi’s “veil” analysis. Warmke asks the question: “If you could not choose, [and were born again], in which kind of world would you prefer to live: a world with bitcoin, like our own, or a world without bitcoin, one like ours but where bitcoin had never been invented?” In our world where over half of the population lives under an authoritarian regime your chances of Western abundance and freedom is the flip of a coin, so the logical answer to his question is, “yes,” I would prefer to live in a world with bitcoin. 

Warmke’s argument is not simply a thought experiment, it is a call to action when we see the destiny of others, by mere chance, was not our own. We must then ask, what, if any, responsibility we, as Bitcoiners bear, to offset chance, and what does that mean for our lives — our immutability?

The Ethics of Immutability

One of Bitcoin’s defining technical features is the immutability of its blockchain ledger. Once a block of transactions is confirmed and added to the chain, it becomes effectively tamper-proof; the record is permanent. This idea of an unchangeable record of actions provides a rich metaphor for thinking about life, legacy and moral responsibility — a responsibility toward upholding and empowering the freedom of others. We might ask: If your life’s choices were encoded like transactions in an immutable ledger, would you be proud of the record? Are our actions, in a sense, etched in time as part of our legacy, and how does that influence the way we choose to live?

The notion of an “immutable essence” versus the possibility of a dynamic being has long been debated. Existentialist thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre argued that for human beings, “existence precedes essence.” By this, Sartre meant there is no predefined, unchanging soul or nature that determines what we are; rather, we continuously create ourselves through our choices and actions. We are, in Sartre’s words, “condemned to be free,” wholly responsible for shaping our identity and values in the absence of any fixed template given by God or nature. We define ourselves through our choices and actions. This emphasis on freedom and authenticity means that moral commitment is something we choose and enact, not something imposed by an immutable essence or fate. Every action contributes to the “ledger” of who we are. Sartre even suggested that in choosing for oneself, one should consider that they are, in a way, choosing an example for all humanity, a bit like every transaction you broadcast to the blockchain becomes part of a public history that others can see. 

Now, contrast this with other philosophical or religious views that do posit an immutable core to the self. In Plato’s philosophy and in many spiritual traditions, there is the idea of a soul, something fundamentally stable and divine in a person that persists through change. Plato, for instance, considered the soul immortal and unchanging in its essence. Some religious perspectives hold that salvation or enlightenment is about realizing one’s eternal, unchanging true nature. In such views, moral improvement might be seen as uncovering or manifesting an already existing goodness. On the other hand, there are also views that stress transformation, the idea that one must become something different.

Finally, at the opposite extreme, philosophies like Buddhism and David Hume’s empiricism deny any fixed self at all: They argue that the self is an illusion, a series of fleeting states with no enduring essence. Buddhism teaches anātman, “no-soul” that clinging to the notion of an immutable identity is a source of suffering, and liberation comes from recognizing the impermanence of all components of the self. Why do these abstract views matter in our context? Because they frame an ethical question: How should we live and engage with the world around us? If you believe you have an immutable soul, perhaps you strive to keep it pure and untarnished — you might act in ways that “timestamp” only what you would want eternally associated with you. (Think of a virtuous person wanting to leave a legacy as pristine as Satoshi’s untouched coins on the blockchain). 

If instead you believe that identity is something you create, then every choice is like mining a new block — an opportunity to add to the chain of your life in a meaningful way. And if you believe there is no permanent self, you might focus on the present consequences of actions rather than any lasting record, or you might find meaning in contributing to something larger (like how in Bitcoin, individual nodes come and go, but the ledger persists, similarly one might say individual lives are transient, but good deeds can have enduring effects beyond the self). 

The concept of blockchain immutability prompts a thought experiment: What if our deeds truly could not be erased or forgotten? In reality, of course, human memory and history are fallible. But increasingly, in the digital age, we do have a kind of permanent memory (the internet never forgets, and the Bitcoin blockchain literally never forgets transactions). 

This imposes a new kind of moral transparency; it recalls the philosopher John Locke’s discussion of personal identity. Locke argued that it is continuous consciousness (memory of one’s actions) that constitutes personal identity even if the substance (the soul or body) changes, as long as consciousness of past actions persists, the person remains the same. He gave a famous scenario: If consciousness could be transferred from one soul to another, the person would go with the consciousness, not with the soul: 

“If consciousness can actually be transferred from one soul to another, then a person can persist, despite a change in the soul to which her consciousness is annexed.” 

In other words, for Locke the moral self is essentially the record of what you’ve thought and done — your “ledger” of consciousness. This idea dovetails intriguingly with the blockchain metaphor: Personal identity might be seen as a chain of memories and actions, an ongoing accumulation of “blocks” (experiences) linked by the awareness of them. An immutable ledger of one’s transactions is an externalization of memory; a permanent consciousness of certain actions. Thus, one could say that morally, we are (or ought to be) the sum of our remembered deeds. If we imagine those deeds are unalterable and public, it could encourage living in such a way that you don’t have to hide or erase anything. 

The concept of immutability calls us to an ethics of accountability as well. It suggests that integrity is about owning one’s past and working to build on it rather than cover it up. The idea of immutability relates to how we consider legacy and mortality. Ernest Becker, in “The Denial of Death,” spoke of people’s desire to achieve something that outlasts them, a “heroic” quest to create an immortal legacy in the face of our mortal lives. In a poetic sense, Bitcoin’s ledger gives everyone the chance to have a tiny immortal legacy: an address with some coins that might live on forever in the chain, or an inscription in a transaction (some have even embedded messages in Bitcoin’s blockchain). Of course, those are just data. But it raises a question of what kind of immortality really matters. The existentialist view would say the only immortality we can genuinely attain is to have our actions positively influence others and become part of the human story. To paraphrase, the only justification for our existence is whatever significance our actions have on the lives of others. Or as one contemporary actor puts it,

“If you are not making someone else’s life better, you are wasting your time.”

An immutable record by itself is meaningless unless what is recorded has value. So, while the Bitcoin network ensures that a transaction is remembered, it does not tell us what those transactions ought to be. That remains an ethical choice. The “ethics of immutability” might then mean: live in such a way that if your deeds were permanently recorded for all to see, they would represent the person you truly want to be. Live so that the “timestamp” of your life’s work has integrity and, in the spirit of Satoshi, is in service to others. Recognize that, unlike a blockchain, a human life is finite, which lends urgency to acting authentically and courageously now, rather than assuming one can always rewrite or delay.

There is no editing the chain after the fact. Reflecting on immutability connects to questions of personal identity and moral responsibility. Bitcoin’s unalterable ledger is a technological mirror of the philosophical idea that our actions, once done, become part of the tapestry of history and of who we are. Whether one leans more toward the view of a fixed inner soul or a self that is continuously created, in both cases one must confront the consequences of choices. The blockchain model tilts toward Locke and Sartre: You are your record (because there’s no secret essence, only evidence of what you’ve done). That perspective can inspire an ethic of honesty, transparency and consistency. It calls us to make each decision count, to uphold principles even when no one is watching, because on the Bitcoin network, in a sense everyone is always watching. It challenges us to leave behind a legacy that, like Bitcoin’s genesis block with its famous timestamp (“Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”), captures a principled stand for others to remember. The immutability of Bitcoin’s blockchain, metaphorically applied, invites us to strive for an immutable core of values, not in the sense that our character never changes, but that our commitment to certain ethical principles remains unwavering and is evident in our actions.

Bitcoin and a Call to Action

Exploring the philosophy behind Bitcoin and freedom is not a mere intellectual exercise; it has practical implications for how Bitcoiners choose to act. The convergence of ideas we have discussed — Satoshi’s legacy of selflessness and Beauvoir’s ethic of helping others to be free, and the metaphor of living transparently and intentionally — all point toward a modern call to action: to live in alignment with principles of freedom, authenticity and solidarity. 

Protecting and promoting freedom for others: If we take to heart Beauvoir’s dictum that “the freedom of other men must be respected and they must be helped to free themselves,” then a clear implication is to support systems and policies that expand people’s autonomy. In the context of finance and technology, this could mean contributing to open source projects, like Bitcoin, that give individuals more control over their own information and money. It could mean standing against censorship, not only in money but in speech and access to information. For example, technologists might develop censorship-resistant communication tools like Nostr inspired by the same spirit as Bitcoin. Advocates might push for legal protections for encryption and against financial surveillance that disproportionately harms dissidents or marginalized groups. Educators and community leaders can work to demystify technologies like Bitcoin for the general public (since knowledge is power), helping people understand how to use these tools is a way of freeing them from reliance on authorities. In short, actively helping others achieve greater freedom could involve anything from teaching a neighbor how to secure their digital privacy, to supporting human rights organizations that use Bitcoin to aid activists under authoritarian regimes. The key is the mindset of solidarity: recognizing, as Beauvoir did, that my freedom flourishes when I devote myself to the freedom of all. Bitcoin’s community, at its best, has exemplified this through global outreach, establishing Bitcoin circular economies, translations of educational material and donations in crises. 

Building legacy through action: While the Bitcoin blockchain is immutable, our lives are not, which is a good thing. We can change, improve and adapt. The ethics outlined here encourages authentic transformation rather than complacency. Beauvoir admired those who remained passionate and engaged with improving the human condition rather than those who sunk into cynicism and apathy. In the Bitcoin world, this is analogous to the builders and educators who are constantly trying to make the ecosystem better and more accessible, versus speculators who might treat it as a mere get-rich-quick scheme. The call to action is to be the former. 

Simone de Beauvoir wrote that authentic ethics demands “a concrete commitment” to others and to values, and that one should stand against conditions that oppress or hinder other people, and work to change those conditions. As Bitcoiners, “opting out” simply masquerades as action, but Bitcoin is only revealed through action with and for others. In our context, action could include political activism for civil liberties, economic activism like promoting financial literacy or inclusion or technological activism such as contributing to decentralized protocols that counter monopolies.

For instance, individuals inspired by Bitcoin’s success might support other open source efforts in secure communication, or advocate against laws that seek to weaken encryption. They might join local initiatives to support people unbanked or underbanked, showing them alternatives like Bitcoin or simply helping them gain access to any banking since the goal is expanding choice. It is worth noting the Bitcoiners who are fulfilling this call to action already: Anita Posch who is educating thousands in Africa about Bitcoin, Hermann Vivier and Luthando Ndabambi who have created a Bitcoin circular economy in their small South African community, L0la33tz‘s privacy advocacy, Andreas Antonopoulos whose early Bitcoin advocacy was vital to Bitcoin adoption, Alex Gladstein’s tireless efforts with the Human Rights Foundation, among so many more.

Giving a Damn: Satoshi’s legacy and Bitcoin are a call to action to fix ourselves. It was not only the benevolent acts of Bitcoin’s creator that placed this duty upon us but also the understanding that just as the architecture of money has now undergone an upgrade we, too, can seek this for ourselves. While I commend and am excited to have witnessed what this has meant for many Bitcoiners over the years, who have sought ways of improving their lives through health and financial security, betterment must not stop there, as Beauvoir and others have shown us. Yes, one may be seeking perfection of mind and body but without action we risk being buoys on the waves. While foundational, not going beyond one’s betterment, is no more impactful on society than the isolated and solitary monk seeking nirvana.

The only way to gain true freedom; to not be subject to or affected by (a particular undesirable thing), is to not have to rely on a third party in the first place. If freedom means a lack of outside influence on your autonomy, then by default there is an increase in personal responsibility for your choices. Individual rights should not be inversely related to individual responsibility. So it is, in fact, the duty of reciprocal freedom we have to each other and to our communities. We must look toward a new version of ourselves if we are to seek a new version of economy and society, for we are the actors in this new paradigm. Bitcoin invites us to look at discarding traditional ways of thinking and analyzing our world. If we can imagine a new form of money, we can also imagine a new body politic: the absence of Right versus Left. We can imagine what giving, compassion and philanthropy means through the lens of Bitcoin — “free and ready to stretch out toward a new future.” Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, so too is revolution always and everywhere a human phenomenon — not simply a technology. 

We are reminded that freedom is not a given, nor is the promise of Bitcoin — “a freedom can not will itself without willing itself as an indefinite movement.” It must be continually defended and expanded through our choices. Each of us, like a node in a decentralized network, has a role to play in upholding the freedom of the whole. By remaining anonymous and not cashing out, Satoshi asked to not be placed on a pedestal; instead, it is up to us, the users, to carry the mission forward. And as Beauvoir would insist, that mission is meaningless unless it is done for everyone’s benefit. The authenticity of our cause will be judged by whether we indeed make life freer for others, especially the least free. Our words and actions can live on as an immutable ledger in the minds of others, an obvious conclusion, but one whose full weight and impact is not understood until you consider your own legacy. In other words, the ledger that embodies action is the ledger that lives in the memories’ of others forever.

In practice, let this translate into everyday actions: supporting policies that enhance privacy rights, teaching someone about personal financial sovereignty, resisting the temptation to engage in censorship or discrimination, and building technologies that resist coercion. As we do so, we should keep asking ourselves the hard questions Beauvoir posed: 

“Am I really working for the liberation of men? Isn’t this end contested by the means I use to attain it?”

This reflective attitude guards against fanaticism and ensures that freedom as an ideal is not used to justify new forms of oppression. In Bitcoin’s context, it means balancing idealism with humility and constant re-examination of our own aims, a balance that can be struck through pause and reflection. The majority of us are not entrepreneurs or developers, but we can will others free by giving them a voice to be heard not — stifled or contested in the moment. To validate someone else’s lived experience is to give the freedom of consciousness — of identity, upon which all other positive freedoms must build.

Bitcoin’s creation, by an anonymous person who never sought wealth or power, is a profound gesture toward freedom. Our community, if we resist ossifying into dogma or tribalism, can continue that gesture. But if it becomes a tool for exclusion, greed or ideological purity, it betrays its promise to be infinitely more than what it would be if it were reduced to being what it is. Bitcoin is ethically meaningful only when it serves as a movement toward freedom, especially for those previously denied it. Our conclusion is to see Bitcoin not simply as a financial asset or a mere technical development, but as part of a broader ethical project: building a world where individuals can transact, speak, create and live according to their own will and conscience, limited only by the equal freedom of others. Achieving this will require intentional living, courageous action and an unyielding commitment to both innovation and freedom. 

The tools are in our hands; the ledger is before us. The next blocks, the next pages of our own history and Bitcoin’s, will be written by what we choose to do now.

BM Big Reads are weekly, in-depth articles on some current topic relevant to Bitcoin and Bitcoiners. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine. If you have a submission you think fits the model, feel free to reach out at editor[at]bitcoinmagazine.com.

This post The Ethics of Immutability first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mark Stepheny.

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Historic First: U.S. Government Posts GDP Data on Bitcoin Blockchain

The U.S. government has officially begun publishing gross domestic product (GDP) data on public blockchains. According to Bloomberg, the Commerce Department’s announcement on Thursday brings blockchain into the core of America’s economic reporting, making GDP available on nine networks including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.

Commerce officials emphasized that the blockchain rollout is not a replacement for traditional economic data releases, but rather “another avenue” for distribution, according to Bloomberg. The move, however, carries significant symbolic weight, as it effectively places the government’s seal of approval on technology once viewed with deep skepticism in Washington.

“The entire administration has embraced this,” said Mike Cahill, chief executive officer of Douro Labs, who confirmed he has been working with the Commerce Department on the initiative for the past two months. “With today’s announcement we are now in a world where government data lives on blockchains, and market participants can participate in real time.”

The blockchain initiative involves posting cryptographic hashes of GDP data, which serve as digital fingerprints to verify the information’s integrity. While limited in scope initially, Commerce Department officials confirmed that President Donald Trump’s administration intends to expand the program further, Bloomberg reported.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick spearheaded the project, telling Trump earlier this week that statistics would be issued via blockchain “because you are the crypto president.” Lutnick has previously suggested reshaping GDP reporting by removing the impact of government spending.

The initiative reflects a sharp departure from the prior administration. Under former President Joe Biden, regulators adopted a cautious stance toward crypto, often clashing with exchanges and imposing restrictions on digital assets. In contrast, Trump has moved quickly to integrate Bitcoin into government policy. Since taking office, he has created a U.S. Bitcoin reserve, stockpiled coins such as Ether and Solana, signed legislation regulating stablecoins, and appointed crypto-friendly regulators who ended enforcement actions against Coinbase.

Trump’s family has also deepened its presence in the digital asset space, backing ventures such as World Liberty Financial. The industry’s growing political clout is evident: crypto firms donated heavily to Trump’s reelection campaign and contributed over $133 million to super PACs supporting pro-crypto candidates in 2024, according to OpenSecrets.

By leveraging public blockchains, the Commerce Department joins other agencies experimenting with crypto technology. The Department of Homeland Security has considered blockchain for airport passenger screening, while California’s DMV has digitized car titles on crypto, according to Bloomberg.

As Trump positions himself as the “crypto president,” the adoption of blockchain for GDP distribution signals a profound shift in U.S. economic policy—and further cements Bitcoin as a powerful political and financial force in Washington.

This post Historic First: U.S. Government Posts GDP Data on Bitcoin Blockchain first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nik.

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Bitcoin Hong Kong Returns in 2026

HONG KONG – August 28, 2025 – BTC Inc., the organizer of the world’s largest Bitcoin conferences, today announced that Bitcoin Hong Kong 2026 will take place in Hong Kong on August 27 – 28, 2026. Following record-breaking growth in recent years, the return to Hong Kong highlights it’s pivotal role in the global Bitcoin economy.

The momentum continues after Bitcoin Asia 2025 saw over 20,000 sold passes, building on the success of Bitcoin Asia 2024, which featured some of the industry’s most influential voices. This year edition lineups have included notable speakers such as Eric Trump, CZ, Belaji Srinivasan, Adam Back, Bilal Bin Saquib and Dr. Xiao Feng, underscoring the event’s reputation as a stage where global leaders, innovators, and policymakers come together to shape the future of Bitcoin.

“Bitcoin Hong Kong is where global adoption meets unstoppable innovation,” said Justin Doochin, Director of Global Events at BTC Inc. “Every year, we see the conversation expand, the energy grow, and the community strengthen. Hong Kong continues to be one of the most dynamic hubs for fintech innovation, and 2026 will set a new benchmark for what’s possible.”

72-Hour Free GA Pass Launch

In celebration of the announcement, BTC Inc. is offering a free General Admission (GA) pass for 72 hours, available starting at 8:00 AM Hong Kong time on August 28, 2025. The promo will run until 8:00 AM August 30, 2025. During this window, attendees can secure their spot at no cost before standard ticket pricing begins.

Following the 72-hour promotion, ticket pricing will move to tiered levels, including:

• GA Pass – $48

• Pro Pass – $188

• Whale Pass – $1,888

About The Bitcoin Conference​

The Bitcoin Conference, organised by BTC Media, the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine, is a global event series, featuring notable industry speakers, workshops, exhibitions, and entertainment. These events serve as vital platforms for Bitcoin industry leaders, developers, investors, and enthusiasts to gather, network, and exchange ideas. The flagship event took place in 2025 in Las Vegas. Bitcoin 2026 is announced to be held in Las Vegas in April 2026. Its international events include Bitcoin Asia (Hong Kong, August 2025), Bitcoin Amsterdam (Amsterdam, November 2025) and Bitcoin MENA, co-organised by ADNEC Group (Abu Dhabi, December 2025).

This post Bitcoin Hong Kong Returns in 2026 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Bitcoin Magazine.

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An Excerpt From Bitcoin Circular Economies: The Beginning

When people picture a tropical beach with volcanic sands, warm waters and dreamy surfing waves, they are describing El Zonte, in El Salvador. It’s hard to think that this natural paradise was once the battleground of Latin America’s most savage and violent gangs for decades. According to a UNICEF report, the homicide rate in 2015 was 103 per 100,000 inhabitants. The result was thousands of children orphaned and vulnerable to be recruited by the drug cartels, where the only option for a better life seemed to be to migrate to the United States.

Chimbera was born in the community of El Zonte, where opportunities were divided by a road which separated the beach from the mountains. “In the past if you were born on the beach, you were a fisherman, like my father and grandfather. If you were born in the mountains, you were a farmer; while women were mainly housewives. The only hope for a better future for young people was to emigrate to the United States or Canada. We learned with sadness that the opportunities were there, the land of freedom where dreams supposedly came true. Paradoxically, these words come from a smiling face. It is very easy to fall in love with Román Martínez’s smile; known as “Chimbera” to his closest friends and family. His contagious joy comes from someone who knows in depth the darkest sides a society can fall into. His smile tells a story of collective overcoming, where a group of people believed that a better future was possible and, without expectations but with tireless determination, transformed a fishing village in one of the poorest and most violent countries in the world into a hub of technological innovation and human development. Something unusual in modern history.

Chimbera looks to the sky before continuing to reflect on dreams. “We believe in God and in the law of attraction of different things, but it is fundamental to believe in something that moves you to commit and work every day for that dream.  In the beginning, the dream was to help kids have more opportunities in the community, keep them out of delinquency and get them to start dreaming.” The problem, Román highlights, is that many times they tell you “fight for your dreams” but they don’t give you the tools or the knowledge to be able to achieve them. “That’s how our dream began: Jorge meeting with the children on the street, supporting them and inspiring them to dream of a better future.

It’s hard not to get emotional with Jorge Valenzuela as he tearfully explains why they decided to create Hope House. “We sought to give these children the opportunities that our friends didn’t have and the reason why many of them are no longer here with us.” Like most of the residents of El Zonte, he too has a story to tell. Some twenty years ago, Jorge made his living from farming. He had a heart for surfing and the waves, but the sad reality around him forced him to keep his feet on the ground. At that time, the job market only offered two options: to become a gang member or to be hired as private security on a property. The sad and violent reality of those years presented a dead end. “There was a lack of employment, educational and personal development opportunities in general. Faced with this, many sought to emigrate and look for them elsewhere,” Jorge explains clearly.

During those years, in the mornings, when the sun began to peek over the mountains, Jorge knew what he wanted to do. He would take his board and go down to the black sand beach. There, on his back, with his board stuck in the sand and his eyes on the horizon, Hirvin was waiting for him. Together they learned to read the sea, to feel the direction of the wind. They used to warn strangers about the treacherous currents that dragged the unsuspecting out to sea, and over time they began to pass on their knowledge of the sea and surfing to the youngest members of the community. Patience is the greatest virtue of surfers, for those who know how to wait are the ones who manage to ride the perfect wave. Both spent their afternoons sitting on their boards, looking for the best strategy to get ahead, to help their community. It was there, floating in the sea, where Hirvin and Jorge identified an area with enormous potential. “We took tourism as a main tool, as a window that would connect us with other countries, to whom we could show the beauty of our land and invite them to visit our community”. They were confident that they could generate new jobs in the town. “I was a surf instructor at the time and I felt that this sport would be fundamental for everything that happened later in El Zonte,” says Jorge.

No one could have imagined that on that beach, surrounded by humble houses and dirt roads, the world’s first Bitcoin circular economy would emerge. Soon, Jorge and Hirvin’s paths would cross with the person who would change their lives. “For some twist of fate, people like Mike, Melissa, Carlos and Alex decided to move to El Zonte and dedicate their time and effort to help our community,” recalls Jorge. The beach and surfing were their rallying point. “We were kids, I remember they started teaching us English, they put us in contact with the tourists that were arriving, and that cultural exchange was what began to change our minds. This allowed us to dream, something we were not used to in El Zonte. They showed us that, no matter the circumstances, if we have dreams and commit to them, things can change.” Jorge evokes the figure of Mike Peterson and, in a moment, he realizes that his life could have been very different if he had not met him.

With Mike’s incorporation into the project, they began to systematize the community work on the beach. The idea was simple: create opportunities and hope for young people. Empower them as leaders and give them the necessary tools so that they do not have to emigrate or get involved in gangs. Fill the “children’s love tank,” as Jorge defines it in his own words. “When we were little they taught us some words in English, they helped us to read and write better, but it was when my daughter, who is 17 today, was born that I understood that we had been children with an empty love tank.” A community where children grew up without parents or older siblings present to give them love, support and an example to follow. “We all have a tank, it can be empty or it can be filled with love and hope. That’s what the kids in our community needed.”

Mike wasn’t just a blue-eyed gringo who came to El Zonte and fell in love with its beaches and people. Peterson arrived as a surfer but soon became a dream maker.

Discover more in Bitcoin Circular Economies
This excerpt is just the beginning. Dive deeper into how Bitcoin is transforming communities worldwide in Bitcoin Circular Economies. The e-book is available now, and the paperback is open for pre-order for only $21 for a limited time.

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This post An Excerpt From Bitcoin Circular Economies: The Beginning first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Gabriel Kurman.

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200 Days of the Bitcoin President — Is Donald Trump’s Second Term Cause for Celebration or Concern?

Donald Trump has held office as the 47th president of the United States since January 20, 2025. At a little over 200 days, it seems a good time to recap where the “Bitcoin President” has paved the way to make the United States the proclaimed “crypto capital of the world,” and where we will go from here.

First, under Trump’s second presidency, many prominent industry actors have seen favorable outcomes to the legal troubles they had faced under previous administrations. 

Terra/Luna founder Do Kwon reached a plea agreement with the Department of Justice, finding him guilty of just two of the total nine charges for losing investors over $40 billion over the course of days. The second circuit overturned the conviction of former OpenSea product manager Nathan Chastain for insider trading. The SEC dropped its cases against the cryptocurrency exchanges Gemini and Coinbase, paused its lawsuit against Binance and reportedly ended its investigations into Consensys, Robinhood, and Uniswap. 

Meanwhile, Tron founder Justin Sun, who didn’t just face charges by the SEC over offering unregistered securities but was reportedly also subject to a DOJ investigation, now dines with the president.

On the regulatory side, things are also looking up, with everybody and their mother announcing plans to issue stablecoins, from Ripple to the state of Wyoming, thanks to the only legislature that has so far made it into law: the so-called GENIUS Act. And while we still have no idea how much bitcoin the U.S. Government holds, as 200-plus days are apparently not enough to round up a comprehensive audit, the cheer for the bitcoin strategic reserve continues — except that the government appears to have no plans to actually buy the bitcoin, but will rather pivot to seizing it from, well, you.

Everybody Is A Money Transmitter

What’s most notable is that each one of the aforementioned industry players relies heavily on the development of open source technologies. Without open source, not a single one of the mentioned platforms would have anything to trade, let alone to build. And for the developers of open source technologies, the president’s plans seem more than grim.

In July, Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill pleaded guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, facing up to five years in federal prison. A week later, Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm was found guilty by a jury in the Southern District of New York of the same offense.

Both prosecutions proceeded despite a memo issued by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in April, which was widely celebrated to put an end to the DOJ’s attempts to make new laws through prosecutions explicitly calling on the DOJ to no longer charge developers of software for the actions of their users. While widely celebrated, the memo left so much room to continue exactly such prosecutions that it was about as reliable as the Trump administration’s promises to release the Epstein list.

Regulatory clarity for developers has since been at an all-time low. According to the outcomes in Samourai Wallet and Tornado Cash, noncustodial software developers may no longer be charged for not having a money transmission license, but they may be charged for the transmission of illicit proceeds. So, are noncustodial software developers money transmitters that could face criminal charges in the U.S.? Your guess is as good as mine.

What’s clear is that the verdict against Roman Storm has set a so-called persuasive precedent, meaning that anyone building non-custodial tools could be charged with a federal offense at the DOJ’s discretion.

Bringing the PATRIOT Act to Digital Assets

In terms of digital asset legislation, the last months have also been turbulent. While the GENIUS Act was much anticipated — though arguably more so by those who wear suits and those who pay for them — it also opened the door to the application of the Bank Secrecy Act, a law that mandates anti-money laundering and KYC requirements.

While the GENIUS Act officially codifies certain rules for stablecoin issuers as financial institutions, the Treasury has since requested public comment on the application of digital identities to so-called DeFi services in relation to the GENIUS Act that would require non-custodial service providers to check a user’s identity credentials before executing transactions.

Overall, the Treasury’s idea is that it’s acting in accordance with one of Trump’s first executive orders on Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology, which aims to promote the “responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies” — keyword being “responsible.”

What is meant by such “responsible” growth was finally revealed in the first White House Digital Assets Report last month, tasking Congress to create new sub-categories in the Bank Secrecy Act for digital assets, as well as asking FinCEN to consider next steps in the Biden-era mixer rule: This regulation that would outlaw pretty much any chance at transactional privacy, including the use of new, non-KYC addresses.

If this may sound unconstitutional to you — since, you know, code is speech in this country — I regret to inform you that where we are going, we won’t need a Constitution. The majority of ideas floated by the president are governed under the PATRIOT Act, which the White House has asked Congress to specifically expand to digital assets — and the PATRIOT Act trumps the Constitution every time, pun very much intended.

In short, the Bitcoin Presidency may sound great on paper, but in reality, the environment to develop code in the U.S. has never been more hostile. The Trump administration must drastically change course if it aims to actually fulfill its promises to Bitcoin users.

Until then, it seems we would be well advised to issue caution when the government invites us to “come home” to build our services in the crypto capital of the world, as you may only get to see it from the inside of a prison cell.

This post 200 Days of the Bitcoin President — Is Donald Trump’s Second Term Cause for Celebration or Concern? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by L0La L33Tz.

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Bitcoin Price Drops Below $112,000 As Metaplanet Announces To Buy $11.7M Worth Of Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s price retreated below $112,000 as Japan’s Metaplanet announced the purchase of an additional 103 BTC worth approximately $11.7 million, bringing its total holdings to 18,991 BTC valued at roughly $2.2 billion.

The announcement comes as FTSE Russell confirmed Metaplanet’s inclusion in the FTSE Japan Index, upgrading the company from small-cap to mid-cap status in its September 2025 semi-annual review. The index inclusion, set to take effect after market close on September 19, marks a significant milestone for corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies.

“Another important milestone on our journey as Japan’s leading Bitcoin treasury company,” Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich wrote on X (formerly Twitter). The company’s aggressive Bitcoin acquisition strategy aims to accumulate 210,000 BTC.

The latest purchase was partially funded through the exercise of 49,000 stock acquisition rights between August 18-22, which added 4.9 million shares to the company’s total outstanding shares, now reaching 722 million. This financing mechanism, while diluting existing shareholders, enables continued Bitcoin accumulation without depleting cash reserves.

Metaplanet’s inclusion in the FTSE Japan Index creates a regulated route for BTC exposure and paves the way for other Bitcoin-forward companies to join major benchmarks. Passive flows into the FTSE indices could channel institutional capital into Metaplanet, offering indirect Bitcoin exposure.

The company’s transformation from a traditional hotel group to Asia’s most active Bitcoin treasury firm reflects a broader trend of corporate Bitcoin adoption. In the past month alone, five public companies have announced significant Bitcoin treasury initiatives, including Ming Shing Group’s $483 million purchase and KindlyMD’s $679 million acquisition.

The integration of Bitcoin-heavy companies into traditional equity indices presents new challenges for institutional investors. While passive inflows through index inclusion could boost liquidity and long-term stability, large movements in Bitcoin prices could create unexpected volatility for passive investors.

Eric Trump, who joined Metaplanet as a strategic adviser in March, is expected to attend the company’s next shareholder meeting in Tokyo in September. His involvement highlights the growing intersection between traditional finance and Bitcoin treasury strategies.

As more corporations adopt Bitcoin treasury strategies, the line between traditional equity investments and Bitcoin exposure continues to blur. Metaplanet’s FTSE inclusion may serve as a template for other companies looking to balance Bitcoin treasury operations with mainstream market participation.

The trend of corporate Bitcoin adoption shows no signs of slowing, with analysts expecting more companies to announce Bitcoin treasury initiatives in the coming months. This growing institutional acceptance, coupled with innovative financing structures, suggests that corporate Bitcoin holdings could become an increasingly significant factor in both equity and Bitcoin markets.

This post Bitcoin Price Drops Below $112,000 As Metaplanet Announces To Buy $11.7M Worth Of Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Vivek Sen.

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