Good Morning, Bitcoin - Thursday, October 31st, 2024

GM. "I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party. The paper is available at https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf." Happy Bitcoin Whitepaper Day!

What's happening

• Bitcoin Popularity Index. The Bitcoin Popularity Index by Conor21m measures global Bitcoin interest using per capita Google search data for "Bitcoin" and "BTC" across languages, adjusted for population and Google's local market share.
  • According to the index, citizens and residents of the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland are the most interested in Bitcoin. Bitcoin popularity is also relatively high in Canada, the United States, Singapore, Brazil, Israel, and Australia.
    • You can download the full infographic here.

• MicroStrategy plans to raise $42 billion in next three years. "We are announcing a strategic goal of raising $42 billion of capital over the next 3 years, comprised of $21 billion of equity and $21 billion of fixed income securities, which we refer to as our “21/21 Plan.” As a Bitcoin Treasury Company, we plan to use the additional capital to buy more bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset in a manner that will allow us to achieve higher BTC Yield," announced Phong Le, President and Chief Executive Officer of MicroStrategy.
• Reddit sold most of its bitcoin. A Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) noted that Reddit sold nearly $6.9 million worth of cryptocurrency during the quarter.

"We sold the majority of our cryptocurrency portfolio, which consisted primarily of bitcoin and ether. The net carrying value of our cryptocurrencies, as well as the gain recognized on sale, was immaterial," said the company.

• Florida to evaluate the possibility of including Bitcoin in state pension funds. The Chief Financial Officer of Florida, Jimmy Patronis, has proposed considering bitcoin as a diversification asset for public pension funds, requesting a feasibility and risk report by March 2025.
• Coinbase integrates Visa Direct for real-time account funding. Customers of Visa can now add their eligible debit cards into their Coinbase accounts for near-instant deposits, announced the company.

Use the tools

• BTCPay Server v2.0.0 introduces full interface localization, sidebar-only navigation, a new onboarding flow for new users and Point of Sale merchants, as well as e-commerce integrations with Wix, Odoo, and BigCommerce. It also includes numerous fixes, improvements, and crucial backend updates that lay a solid foundation for future BTCPay Server developments.

"BTCPay Server 2.0 realigns the internal architecture with the lessons we’ve learned since 2017, positioning us to better support both plugin developers and ourselves as we implement new features. While it may not seem immediately obvious, we expect users to see the full potential of 2.0 in the upcoming months, as the ecosystem continues to thrive and build on top of it," stated the BTCPay Server's team.

• Alby Go v.1.7 implements LNURL-withdraw support, improved currency selection, boostagram information in transaction details, and various bug fixes and improvements.
• Cash Nutshell v0.16.1 update brings several bug fixes and stability improvements. It also adds support for LND via gRPC.
• Keychat app v1.20.3 fixes some bugs, allows users to set room relays, and changes Sentry to Firebase.
• YakiHonne v2.0 update brings a complete platform redesign, featuring an easier onboarding flow and the ability to create or add multiple Lightning wallets, a new content layout, and navigation improvements. The new and improved platform also includes a re-engineered core for better performance and outbox model support.
• Nak v0.7.9, a command line tool for doing all things Nostr, has been released.
• Tor Browser v14.0.1 has been released.
• Pubky Password Manager is a simple app for storing passwords on your own home server, built with Pubky Core.

Other stuff

• A new Bitcoin Policy UK website can be found here.

"By next year, multiple countries will use this platform, saving time, cutting costs, and making international collaboration on Bitcoin Policy easier than ever," said the organization.

• Cashu.space is the new homepage of the Cashu protocol.
• Jameson Lopp updated Bitcoin hardware signer multisig performance report with Ledger Flex and Trezor Safe 5 devices.

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