Good Morning, Bitcoin - Monday, August 12th, 2024

GM. It is Monday, August 12th, and here's your daily update on the latest in Bitcoin and freedom tech.

What's happening

• UN Cybercrime Convention draft treaty finalized. The United Nations has finalized the draft of the UN Cybercrime Convention. The treaty establishes a global legal framework for cybercrime and data access, allowing authorities to obtain electronic evidence and request user data from internet service providers across nations. It also requires member states to identify, trace, confiscate, and seize crime-related assets and collect real-time data for requesting states. The convention will be voted on by the General Assembly in the fall, where it is expected to pass.
• Nigerian bitcoiner James Otudor embarks on a major legal battle. Nigerian citizen has filed a landmark lawsuit against key Nigerian government entities, arguing that the ongoing targeting and persecution of Nigerians who own and use bitcoin and other digital assets constitute a clear violation of their fundamental human rights.

• US Government wants a 30-year sentence for Roman Sterlingov. US prosecutors recommend a 30-year prison sentence and a $100,000 fine for Roman Sterlingov, a Swedish-Russian citizen convicted of money laundering and running an unlicensed money transmitter tied to the Bitcoin mixer Bitcoin Fog, reports The Rage.
  • Sterlingov was convicted on all four counts last March, despite the absence of incriminating digital evidence during his arrest; prosecutors relied on questionable blockchain tracing, IP matching, and online account links. His defense lawyer, Tor Ekeland, plans to appeal.
• Russia and Venezuela block Signal. Russia's telecommunications watchdog has restricted access to the Signal encrypted messaging service, citing violations of anti-terrorism and anti-extremism laws. The messenger was also blocked in Venezuela following the disputed presidential election results from late July.
  • Signal acknowledged that its services are blocked in some countries and advised users to enable the censorship circumvention feature in the app settings (Signal Settings > Privacy > Advanced > Censorship circumvention).
• Israeli's robbed of $700k worth of BTC in Costa Rica. Eleven Israeli tourists were attacked by eight men who overpowered their security and stole $700,000 in bitcoin. Analysis of surveillance footage suggests that the robbers may be current or former police officers, reports local media.
• Thailand launches 'crypto' regulatory sandbox. The country's securities watchdog has launched a sandbox for businesses to study and navigate the balance between innovation Bitcoin and digital assets and regulatory restrictions.
• IRS shares new crypto tax form. The IRS has released an updated draft of the 1099-DA tax form for crypto brokers and investors to report proceeds from transactions. Starting in 2026, investors using brokers and centralized exchanges will receive this form to report taxable events. The new version is more streamlined than the initial draft from April, and the public has 30 days to provide the IRS with comments, reports CoinDesk.
• OP.NEXT is a technical and workshop-heavy conference exploring Bitcoin's next soft fork. It will take place at the Fidelity Center For Applied Technology in Boston, MA, on Saturday, November 9.

• Santa Monica Open-Source Bitcoin Festival. The newly opened Bitcoin Office in Santa Monica has announced an open-source Bitcoin festival set for October 18, 2024.

Use the tools

• Cypher.space has released an initial version of its self-hosted, bitcoin-only platform for setting up a free Bitcoin blog or web shop with value-for-value donation and checkout tools. Learn how to set it up here.

• Alby announced two new Bitcoin Connect bounties. The first one is focused on implementing a currency selector in Bitcoin Connect, while the second aims to increase accessibility to allow usage of Bitcoin Connect with just a keyboard.
• Bitcoin Connect v3.6.1, a simple library that enables users to connect their wallets to lightning-powered websites on any browser via WebLN, has been released.
• Amber v1.3.0 features a redesign of the login and signup flow, support for seed words, sign policy settings, and an improved view of permissions when the application is open.
• Blitz Wallet v0.2.5-beta includes a VPN app integration using LN VPN and updates to the settings interface.

Blitz new @ln_vpn integration allows users to buy VPN service for a short period of time and in a private manner aswell.

Here I'm buying 1 weeks worth of British VPN time.

Users need @WireGuardVPN to utilize this service. https://t.co/GFGneW3POS pic.twitter.com/XS3CYN3K6e

— Oliver Koblížek | LNHANCE 🍩 (@Stromens) August 9, 2024

• Resurrection Wallet v0.4.0 is a beta desktop frontend release for the Phoenix server. It now uses real fiat currency rates and adds logs for troubleshooting.
• Fedimint v0.4.1 is a patch release that fixes a bug for users of the Esplora Bitcoin backend.
• Coop v0.1.6, a nostr-based chat app, comes with native notifications and bug fixes.
• Team Relay is a specialized nostr relay for teams, written in Go.
• Amethyst v0.89.10 is the latest update for the Nostr client on Android, improving notification filtering and reducing memory usage.
• Nos.social v0.1.24 is now available on TestFlight. It adds push notifications for zaps, improves app performance, and fixes several bugs.

Other stuff

• Awesome-L402 is a curated list of awesome things related to L402.

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