Good Morning, Bitcoin - Monday, July 29th, 2024

GM. This is Monday, July 29th, and everything is good for Bitcoin. The price of bitcoin is heading for $70,000 after what could be labeled 'the most political weekend in Bitcoin's history.' While it's uncertain how some of the 'bitcoin to-the-moon' promises will materialize, more people are increasingly recognizing Bitcoin as a powerful tool for change. Most importantly, that change begins here with sound and productive grassroots adoption.

What's new

• In a keynote at the Bitcoin 2024 conference, former president Donald Trump pledged to fire SEC chair Gary Gensler, halt U.S. sales of Bitcoin holdings to create a “strategic bitcoin reserve,” and end anti-crypto policies like “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” if elected in November.
• Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also promised to sign an executive order to acquire 4 million Bitcoin for a national strategic reserve over 20 years and to make all USD-to-Bitcoin transactions tax-exempt if elected.
• Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) announced a proposal to enhance the U.S. dollar by creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve to combat inflation and strengthen the dollar. The bill is set to be introduced in the coming days, with additional cosponsors to be announced.

• Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s advisers have reportedly reached out to 'the top crypto companies' (namely Coinbase, Circle, and Ripple Labs) to reset relations between her party and the industry. A group of Democratic politicians also sent a letter to the DNC urging party leadership to shift away from an 'anti-crypto' stance.
• CoinCenter's Jerry Brito said that the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act has been reintroduced in the Senate with bipartisan support. The act aims to establish an exemption similar to that for foreign currency, excluding low-value, everyday Bitcoin transactions from capital gains tax.
• Pay-to-snitch surveillance firm Arkham Intelligence, which aims to "deanonymize the blockchain," is reportedly obscuring the sales of its own ARKM shitcoin.
• Ledger unveiled Ledger Flex signing device, which comes with a secure E Ink touchscreen, Secure Element Chip and Ledger’s proprietary OS.

• The State of Michigan Retirement System reported owning $6.6 million of the ARK Bitcoin ETF as of June 30.
•  Japanese public company Metaplanet has formed a strategic partnership with Hoseki, a global Bitcoin verification solutions provider, to enable users to verify the company’s Bitcoin holdings.
• The University of Wyoming has launched the UW Bitcoin Research Institute, the first academic institute focused on Bitcoin studies.

Use the tools

• Casa, a Bitcoin self-custody firm, now allows users to secure their vaults with Yubikeys.
• SideSwap v1.6.0, a desktop and mobile app for trading assets on the Liquid Network, adds Bluetooth support for Jade devices and includes bug fixes.
• BitBanana v0.8.4, a native Android app for Lightning node operators, now supports watchtowers and inbound fee control for LND nodes.
• The Mempool Accelerator has officially entered open beta, according to The Mempool Open Source Project. Initial pool partners include Foundry USA Pool, MARA Pool, SBICrypto, SpiderPool, and Ocean Pool, collectively representing around 40% of the network's hashrate, reports The Miner Mag.

Mempool Accelerator™ fixes this

Launch of open beta starts today!

Click Accelerate from the transaction page and pay with lightning or fiat.
No sign up necessary.

Initial mining pool partners make up 40% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate: @FoundryServices, @MarathonDH, @SBICrypto,… pic.twitter.com/NIQXq53ZRb

— mempool (@mempool) July 27, 2024

• Breez SDK Liquid v0.2.0 now allows users to buy Bitcoin via Moonpay, improves Lightning receive performance, adds the ability to set claim fees in chain swaps and custom invoice descriptions, along with a breaking change related to the wallet directory structure.
• Blockstream Green iOS v4.0.31 introduces the ability to rescan Lightning swaps, set TLS for custom Electrum servers, and includes several minor improvements.
• Blockstream Green Development Kit (GDK) v0.72.0 pre-release has been tagged, featuring various new functionalities and changes.
• Satonomics v0.3.0, a FOSS Bitcoin-only self-hostable alternative to Glassnode, is out with improved performance, new datasets like rations and block metadata, self-hosting enhancements, and several UI/UX upgrades.
• Darthcoin introduced The Telegram Bot Channel Recommender for Lightning node runners.
• The Satoshi Nakamoto Institute has unveiled its newly redesigned website.

• Lightning Terminal v0.13.3-alpha updates the integrated Taproot-assets (v0.4.1-alpha) and Loop (v0.28.6-beta) versions.
• Keychat App v1.15.7 fixes an issue with Signal Prekey messages during the sending and receiving of red packets and images.
• Blitz Wallet v0.2.4-beta simplifies new user account creation.
• TwelveCash 1.10-beta now let's its users choose their own username via a paid option.
• AMBOSS, a lightning data analytics company, has announced the closed beta of MiBanco, an open-source, self-custodial Bitcoin finance app designed for easy onboarding of new users. The first 100 testers can sign up using the code "bitcoin".
• Alby Hub v1.3.4 patches minor issues around editing app permissions and opening channels.
• GrapheneOS v2024072800 has been released, featuring various fixes and improvements.

Other stuff

• Coingate's crypto payments report shows that the volume of Lightning Network payments has been increasing recently.

• Super Testnet's Nostr workshop is available here for just $5 (or less).
• Stacker.news user TomK introduces the concept of 'The Welfare Entrepreneur.'
• Edward Snowden delivered a stark warning about the future of privacy in the digital age.

• What else did we miss? DM us on Nostr.
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