Block 885000: Important News of the Week

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News

• The Human Rights Foundation has donated $250k to OpenSats operational budget. The funds will be allocated to ensure essential operational functions of the organization.

"OpenSats is a powerful force for good in the world. Their largely volunteer-driven team has an outsized impact, and HRF is thrilled to support their important work with this grant to help sustain their operations," said Christian Keroles, Director of Financial Freedom at the HRF.

• Bitwise has donated $150,000 to support open-source Bitcoin developers. The funds will be divided equally, with each receiving $50,000, among Brink, OpenSats, and the Human Rights Foundation.

"Thank you to the investors who’ve chosen Bitwise and BITB among many options. This donation is made possible because of your choice. We hope you’re as proud as we are to support Bitcoin open-source developers," said the company.

• Bybit exchange lost over $1.46B worth of ETH from one of its cold wallets. The attack, attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, constitutes the largest exchange hack in history. The exchange remains fully functional as its operations were not affected by the incident.

• Nigeria freed Gambaryan in exchange for access to US financial surveillance capabilities. Nigeria appears to have exchanged Binance Executive and former IRS criminal investigator Tigran Gambaryan for access to U.S. "resources and expertise" in financial surveillance capabilities as part of a secret deal with the U.S. State Department, reports The Rage.
• Binance sued for $81.5 billion in Nigeria. Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) sued Binance for $79.5 billion in economic losses and $2 billion (plus interest) in back taxes, alleging that Binance has a “significant economic presence” in Nigeria and should therefore be liable for corporate income tax. FIRS also claimed that Binance allowed $26 billion in untraceable funds to leave the country during a foreign exchange crisis.
• Kraken discloses 40% surge in law enforcement data requests. The exchange received 6,826 requests in 2024, reflecting a 38.6% rise from the previous year.
• US SEC to dismiss Coinbase securities lawsuit. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken for running 'unregistered securities' platforms.

"SEC staff has agreed in principle to dismiss its unlawful enforcement case against Coinbase, subject to Commissioner approval – righting a major wrong," said Coinbase's Paul Grewal in a blog post.

• FTX has repaid $1.2 billion to its first group of creditors. These creditors, who were owed less $50,000 each, received their payments on February 18. Under FTX's bankruptcy plan, 98% of creditors will receive at least 118% of their claim value in dollars, rather than cryptocurrency, based on the value from 2022 when the exchange declared bankruptcy.
• US SEC launches a 'crypto' and AI fraud enforcement unit. The Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit (CETU) is set to replace the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit and will be led by Laura D'Allaird. It will focus on combating cyber-related misconduct and protecting retail investors from bad actors in emerging technologies.
• Argentina's Milei is facing fraud charges, impeachment calls following a failed memecoin launch. Opposition lawmakers in Argentina are pushing for impeachment, claiming the scandal has embarrassed the country on the international stage. The country's fintech chamber suggested that the incident might be a 'rug pull.' Milei's administration announced yesterday that it would initiate its own investigation into the token project.
• Ross Ulbricht calls to free Roger Ver. "Roger Ver was there for me when I was down and needed help. Now Roger needs our support. No one should spend the rest of their life in prison over taxes. Let him pay the tax (if any) and be done with it," Ulbricht said on X.
• Howard Lutnick sworn in as US Commerce Secretary. President Donald Trump said that Lutnick's priorities will be focusing on job growth, while adding that Lutnick "really understands something about business."
• Georgia has introduced a Bitcoin-only reserve bill. If approved, the new SB 178 bill would permit investing up to 5% of public funds in bitcoin, reports Atlas21.
• Abu Dhabi has invested $437M in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF. The Mubadala Investment Company, a sovereign wealth fund from Abu Dhabi, purchased over 8.2 million shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). This purchase was confirmed through a 13F filing with the U.S. SEC, reportedly making Abu Dhabi the first government-backed institution to invest in a Bitcoin ETF.
• Fold has become the first Bitcoin financial services firm to trade on Nasdaq. The Bitcoin rewards app went public through a SPAC merger with Nasdaq-listed FTAC Emerald Acquisition Corp. The company holds 1,000 BTC on its balance sheet, worth $96 million.

• Metaplanet purchased an additional 68.59 BTC at an average price of $96,335 per coin. It now holds 2,100 BTC.
• Altvest Capital buys one bitcoin to become the first publicly listed company in Africa to hold bitcoin as a reserve asset. The South African investment firm said it doesn't plan to hold any alternative coins.
• The Bitcoin mining industry has created over 31,000 jobs in the United States. A new report by the Perryman Group highlights that the U.S. bitcoin mining industry and related utility activities contribute over $4.1 billion annually to the gross product when multiplier effects are included. The industry also supports over 31,000 jobs, factoring in these multiplier effects.
  • The state of Texas leads in U.S. bitcoin mining, contributing $1.7 billion in gross product and over 12,200 jobs. Georgia follows with $316.8 million and 2,300 jobs, and New York with $225.9 million and 1,600 jobs annually.

• PlebLab's fifth startup day to take place on March 13 in Austin, Texas. Learn more about the event here.
• bitcoin++ hack edition took place in Florianopolis, Brasil. Recordings of the talks and workshops are available (see agenda here):
  • Day 1 recording.
  • Day 2 recording
  • Day 3 recordings (part 1 and part 2).
• The Swiss Bitcoin Conference is a Bitcoin-only event taking place in Kreuzlingen on Lake Constance from April 24-27, 2025. Get your tickets here.

Updates and releases

• RoboSats v0.7.4-alpha enables LNp2pBot orders on Android app, updates the project's URLs to robosats.org and a new onion address, displays all available payment methods in order creation view, and updates project libraries.

• Bitcoin Seed Tool v2.2.0, a tool designed to help understand how Bitcoin wallets are generated using different sources of entropy, is now available. This update adds support for BIP-85 passwords and improves the functionality of pasting a mnemonic phrase into the tool. Additionally, it switches the URL from paynym.is to paynym.rs, along with a few other fixes and improvements.
• Nix Bitcoin v0.0.119, a collection of Nix packages and NixOS modules for easily installing full-featured Bitcoin nodes with a focus on security, has been released. This update includes upgrading LND to v0.18.5-beta, Electrs to v0.10.9, and NBXplorer to v2.5.17.
• Bitcoin Safe v1.0.7, a bitcoin savings wallet for families, adds support for Burmese and Korean languages, along with some bug fixes.
• Alby Hub v1.14.2 is now available. It introduces new widgets to the home screen, some new apps in the app store, a new health check indicator, NIP-44 encryption, basic swap functionality for easier liquidity management, and more.
• Aqua wallet v0.2.10 includes bug fixes for amount display in USDT and a not respected minimum value in internal send. Additionally, it disables Sideshift TON send/receive due to a bug in the swap order flow.
• Boltz Client v2.4.0 now uses discount confidential transactions on the Liquid Network and introduces a new pro configuration option for using Boltz Pro fee rates.
• Dana Wallet v0.4.0, an Android wallet using the Silent Payments protocol, implements Spend flow designs and adds gzip compression to the blindbit client.
• ZEUS Wallet v0.10.0-alpha3 is now available for testing.
• RBG v0.12.0-beta.5 is now available for testing.
• Utreexo v0.3.2, a hash-based dynamic accumulator based on a Merkle forest, is now available.
• Bitcoin Is Data, a website for "beautiful visualizations of challenging Bitcoin metrics", has been redesigned and now comes fully functional API, modernized charts and buttons, new Data tab, and more.
• Stacker.news added the ability to set base comment fees for territories, auto-retry of failed payments, referral sources, and several bug fixes.
• Coop v0.1.2-alpha, a Nostr direct message client for desktop devices, now automatically sorts the inbox when new messages arrive and fixes a crash on some Linux systems.
• GitPlaza v0.1.0 is a GitHub alternative built on Nostr. Written in Rust, it currently supports basic features such as the ability to log in with nsec, create issues, make comments, and see an activity feed for followed npubs.
• ZapZap is a creative way to zap posts X. The implementation is built with Breez SDK and Greenlight.
• Coracle v0.6.5 is out with the latest bug fixes.
• OpenVibe v1.8, a client for browsing multiple open social media networks, has added the ability to share content directly from one's browser using the system share sheet and the ability to easily switch profiles with a long press of an overview icon.
• Amber v3.2.2, a Nostr event signer for Android, is now available.
• Unleashed.chat has implemented Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) support.

• KeyChat v1.27.2 has been released with support for logging in or importing accounts via the Amber app, along with browser support for sharing URLs to rooms.
• Start9 has announced Server Pure 2025. It features a 45% faster CPU, upgraded NVMe SSD, up to 64GB RAM, a two-year warranty, and a lifetime support membership, starting at a price point of $899.
• Dojo v0.1.0-beta is now available on startOS.
• IVPN users on iOS are urged to update to v2.12.5 due to a potential DNS leak issue.
• eNuts, a mobile cashu wallet for Android and iOS, is no longer maintained. Users are encouraged to switch to alternative apps such as Macadamia on iOS and/or Minibits on Android.
• Mynymbox launched a privacy focused standards-oriented email hosting solution with POP3, IMAP and SMTP and webmail client that offers powerful GPG features and Tor support.
• SimpleX Chat v6.2.5 adds the ability to change media filenames when forwarding, introduces important fixes, and shows app storage usage in dev tools on iOS.

Research and guides

• Bitcoin Optech #342 describes an idea for allowing mobile wallets to settle LN channels without extra UTXOs and summarizes continued discussion about adding a quality-of-service flag for LN pathfinding.hr
• HRF's Weekly Financial Freedom Report #62, focusing on how currency plays a key role in the civil liberties and human rights struggles all over the world, is available here.
• The latest issue of The 256 Foundation newsletter is now available. It covers the latest news, mining industry developments, progress updates on grant projects, actionable advice for choosing a Bitcoin mining pool that’s right for you, and the current state of the Bitcoin network.
• Voltage and Fidelity Digital Assets shared a comprehensive report on the development of the Lightning Network.
• Matt Corallo wrote a blog post explaining why custodial solutions are not solutions.
• DeFi Education Fund published a report on how the U.S. Department of Justice is directly targeting software developers who build non-custodial and privacy-enhancing tools.
• BitcoinDevs.xyz made a post explaining Segwit addresses.
• BTC Sessions published a tutorial on how to safely set up and secure the Trezor Safe 5 Bitcoin-only edition device.

• Nostr Biweekly Review (3 -16 Feb 2025) is now available.
• Expatoriotic wrote a quick email privacy guide.
• Will Jager published an article documenting some of the ongoing attacks on encryption globally.
• WantClue has recorded a tutorial for upgrading to a larger SSD on an existing startOS server.

Mining stats

• The hashrate of the Bitcoin network (7-day SMA) is currently at ~799 EH/s.
• The next mining difficulty adjustment will take place in 24 blocks.

Lightning stats

• The capacity of the Lightning network has decreased by ~70 BTC last week, per amboss.space stats.

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