Good Morning, Bitcoin - Wednesday, October 16th, 2024

What's new

• Blockstream raises $210M via convertible notes. The bitcoin infrastructure company has completed a $210 million convertible note financing round, led by Fulgur Ventures. The funds will be used to fast-track the adoption and development of Blockstream’s layer-2 technologies, expand mining activities, and increase bitcoin treasury holdings.
  • Blockstream Mining Note 2 Series 4 is now live. The notes are now open for eligible investors on STOKR digital marketplace. The sale will run until Tuesday October 22, 2024, unless sold out sooner. You can track its live progress here.
• OpenSats grants long-term support for Greenart7c3. Greenart7c3 is the creator and lead developer of Citrine, an Android-based Nostr relay that serves both as a local relay and a shared database, and Amber, an Android-based Nostr signer utilizing NIP-46. With this grant, Greenart7c3 will focus on extending their cross-platform usability beyond Android devices.
• Norway protects universal ability to pay with cash. Starting October 1, Norway requires all businesses, except medical offices and public transport, to accept cash payments up to 20,000 kroner ($1,850) for security and older people's needs.
• MARA secures $200M line of credit with bitcoin collateral. The miner announced securing a $200 million line of credit from an undisclosed source, using part of its bitcoin holdings as collateral. The funds will be used for strategic opportunities and general corporate purposes. The Miner Mag estimates the collateral to be approximately ~4000 BTC.
• Crime pays when you're a banker. Last week, TD Bank agreed to pay over $3 billion in penalties to the US Government for Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations related to drugs, bribes, and human trafficking. This is the largest fine ever for BSA violations but amounts to less than 1% of the bank's revenue from 2013 to 2023, the period during which the violations occurred, reports The Rage.

• Tesla moves its bitcoin to unknown wallets. The company moved all of its 11,509 BTC (~$770M) to new addresses that are not linked to any known entities. The reason for the wallet transfers is not clear.
• Metaplanet doubles its bitcoin holdings in October. Metaplanet’s latest bitci purchase brings its total holdings to 855.5 BTC worth more than $56.1 million.
• Nearly half of hedge funds are dabbling in digital assets. According to the Global Crypto Hedge Fund Report, 47% of hedge funds trading in traditional markets had exposure to digital assets, up from 29% in 2023 and 37% in 2022. Among those funds already invested, 67% plan to maintain the same level of exposure, while the rest plan to invest more by the end of 2024.

Use the tools

• Foundation Passport v2.3.4 is a minor firmware upgrade. It includes several fixes to restore compatibility with the Casa app, along with various visual bug corrections.
• The latest update for the Geyser.fund bitcoin crowdfunding platform brings private messages for contributors, the ability to log in with email, the option to request buyer info (such as an npub for badge delivery, etc.), an announcement banner, and more.
  • The project also said it will begin charging creators 5% when using the Geyser LN address, while donations received via creator's own node will remain free of charge.

• Bitkey App v2024.71.0 introduces the ability to select MoonPay for selling Bitcoin, adds AUD and CAD as display currencies, and enables the export of transaction history and wallet descriptors.
• Mostro v0.12.7, a P2P Bitcoin marketplace over the Lightning Network and Nostr, introduces Tonic-lnd, fixes for creating orders with LN addresses, brings some Docker configuration updates, bug fixes, and more.
• Coracle v0.4.14 is a bugfix release for v0.4.13, which introduced support for NIP-05 URLs, improved notifications, and more.
• Amethyst v0.92.3 is a small bug fix release.
• buildr v0.0.1 is the first release for the Micro Nostr Client Framework. It allows developers to quickly build and extend Nostr-based clients using Go.
• New Damus TestFlight version should drop today. It is available for Damus Purple subscribers.

• 0xchat v1.3.5 delivers performance improvements, fixes issues with video uploads, and addresses some push notification problems for Android.
• Element Web v1.11.81 is a patch for high severity vulnerability found in versions 1.11.70 through 1.11.80. Users are strongly advised to upgrade their instances to remediate the issue.
• GrapheneOS v2024101600 is a full October 2024 security patch and the initial release of GrapheneOS based on Android 15.

Other stuff

• Saving Satoshi is a fun and interactive way to learn code through the mysteries of Bitcoin.
• 1440000bytes posted a concept for anonymous discount coupons using Chaumian ecash.
• Parker Lewis wrote Bitcoin's Exchange Theory of Value. Read it here.

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