Good Morning, Bitcoin - Monday, December 23rd, 2024

What's new

• Michael Saylor's strategy to turn United States into the global leader in the digital asset economy. Referred to as the "Digital Assets Framework," the proposal details strategies aimed at promoting industry development, establishing the USD as the 'global reserve digital currency,' setting compliance standards, and clarifying the rights of both Bitcoin and broader crypto asset holders and companies.

"By establishing a clear taxonomy, a legitimate rights-based framework, and practical compliance obligations, the United States can lead the global digital economy. A capital markets renaissance fueled by digital assets will unlock trillions in wealth, empower millions of businesses, and solidify the US dollar as the foundation of the 21st-century digital financial system," was stated in the paper.

• In related news, MicroStrategy has appointed Brian Brooks, former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, and Jane Dietze, Chief Investment Officer at Brown University, to the company’s Board of Directors.
• US judge finds Israel's NSO Group liable for hacking in WhatsApp lawsuit. Last Friday, WhatsApp won a major lawsuit against NSO Group, which had hacked Meta’s systems to deploy spyware on over a thousand phones. NSO claimed exemption from legal punishment, stating that it only sells its technology to government agencies that choose targets. Pegasus and similar spyware exploit flaws in WhatsApp and iOS to access data, including encrypted messages. The case is now set to proceed to a trial solely on the issue of damages.

"NSO can no longer avoid accountability for their unlawful attacks on WhatsApp, journalists, human rights activists and civil society. With this ruling, spyware companies should be on notice that their illegal actions will not be tolerated," said WhatsApp spokesman Carl Woog.

• Donald Trump appoints Stephan Miran as Chair of Council of Economic Advisers. Miran is said to be a supporter of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and previously held the position of senior adviser for economic policy at the Treasury Department during the first Donald Trump's term in office, reports CoinDesk.
• Metaplanet adds 619.7 BTC to its balance sheet. The Japanese investment firm made its largest Bitcoin purchase by acquiring 619.7 BTC for approximately $60 million on December 23. This brings the company's total Bitcoin holdings to 1,762 BTC, valued at $168 million.
• El Salvador buys another 11 BTC, continuing its 'accelerated' bitcoin purchase program. The country now holds nearly 5995 coins, adding 29 bitcoin in the last seven days.

• Tether makes a $775 million strategic investment into Rumble. Tether's CEO, Paolo Ardoino, emphasized that the investment aligns with the company's wider goal of backing innovative technologies and enterprises that promote independence and resilience. Rumble is an online video platform, web hosting, and cloud services business headquartered in Canada.
• HEX's Richard Heart makes it to the Interpol's Most Wanted list. Finland has issued an arrest warrant for Richard Schueler, aka Richard Heart, accusing him of fraud amounting to "hundreds of millions of euros" and assault related to an incident allegedly involving a 16-year-old, as stated on a website managed by Europol.

Use the tools

• SeedHammer announced SeedHammer II, the second-generation offline steel engraver for backing up Bitcoin wallets. It features a more compact design, multisig support, trustless sharing, USD scanner support, and more. Learn more or pre-order it here.

• Krux Installer v0.0.20 is the first stable release following a complete code refactoring for a GUI-based application designed to flash Krux DIY signer firmware on K210-based devices.
• Samourai Dojo v1.26.1 addresses upgrade and installation issues, ensuring a smoother user experience.
• Polar v3.2.0, a tool for Lightning-based application developers to quickly spin up one or more testing networks locally on their computers, adds support for the final v0.14.0 version of Terminal (litd). This update officially includes support for making asset payments over Lightning.
• Nigiri v0.5.4, a developer tool for spinning up a personal Bitcoin blockchain with Liquid and Electrum, has been released, offering enhanced functionality for developers.
• Mempal v1.4.2, a Bitcoin mempool monitoring and notification app for Android, delivers an F-Droid compatibility patch, widget optimizations, and various bug fixes to improve performance and reliability.
• Gossip v0.13.0, a highly performant and security-oriented desktop client for Nostr, is a major release that includes File Metadata support (NIP-92 / NIP-94), Blossom support (BUD-01, BUD-02), Recommended Application Handlers (NIP-89) support, relay search (NIP-50), undo for note sends, followers and followed view on the person page, and numerous other enhancements.
• Narr v0.1.0 by fiatjaf is a web-based RSS and Nostr long-form feed aggregator that can be used both as a desktop application and a personal self-hosted server, providing users with versatile options for content aggregation and management.

• Aegis relay by utxo is a premium Nostr relay and Blossom service that allows relay operators to earn income by providing relay services to the network.
• ngit v1.6.0, a CLI tool for code collaboration over Nostr with NIP-34 support, has been released. This update includes an improved onboarding process and enhanced login flow, making it easier for users to collaborate on projects.
  • Gitworkshop.dev provides a visual interface to discuss proposals and open issues. git-remote-nostr enables proposal creation, review and incorporation using standard git tooling. ngit handles repository setup and advanced proposal submission. Learn more about it here.
• Onyx v0.0.2, a personal AI agent that responds to voice commands and will feature the implementation of a Bitcoin wallet and Nostr client functionality, now includes Llama 3.2 3B model, model switcher, and improved model loading and error handling. Available on Android and iOS TestFlight.
• The latest update for SATOSH.EE, a website serving bitcoiners with gift cards, exclusive discounts, and a rewarding Loyalty Program, introduced custom AI-powered designs for gift cards, removed fiat payment methods due to 'issues' with fiat payment processors, and updated available deals and discounts.

• BTCEED is an open-source, self-hostable web application that provides visual overview of your bitcoin HD wallet in a form of a graph. Users can load the entire wallet graph using an xPub key. A live web instance is available here, and you can learn how to host your own instance here.

• OpenLibrarian v0.1.5, a site for tracking and sharing books via Nostr, introduces the Currently Reading feature for tracking progress. This update also implements alternative APIs, along with several minor corrections and dependency updates to enhance performance and user experience.
• Amber v3.0.5, a Nostr event signer for Android, adds the appName parameter for web apps using NIP-55. This release attempts to fix redundant nsecBunker requests and addresses issues with the loading screen.
• Pokey v0.1.3-alpha, a 'pull notification' app for Nostr events on Android, introduces a Notifications Center and improves the recovery of the background service after fatal errors.
• SHKeeper, a self-hosted and open-source multicoin payment gateway, has added support for the Lightning Network payments, including BIP-21 support for dual invoicing (Lightning and on-chain).
• Swiss Bitcoin Pay app v2.2.9 has been released.
• Strike expanded USDT deposis and withdrawal support to Australia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, and UAE.
• Lightning Dev Kit v0.1.0-beta1 has been tagged.

Other stuff

• Severin Alexander Bühler has published a guide on how to host a public key domain website.
• Awesome Nostr Bots offers a curated list of bots on Nostr with their descriptions and functionalities. These bots bring automation, insights, and updates to the Nostr network.
• The Bitcoin Design Community has launched the Bitcoin Design Podcast, aiming to discuss and explore various aspects of design within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
• The Crypto-anarchy Archive project has been officially launched. According to stacker.news user aljaz:

"There is also a lot of gems that people don't know about, like the Untold story of the greatest crypto project ever which I think deserve more attention. Long term goal of this project is to preserve history and distribute important works and information about crypto anarchy. I'll creates torrents and host mirrors of the content so it can be distributed around, but that will come later when the archive feels more wholesome, currently its just a seed of an idea."

• Athena Alpha has published a beginner's guide to Bitcoin Miniscript.
• Yuval Kogman posted a recap to the Bitcoin Dev mailing list, highlighting vulnerabilities associated with centralized coinjoin implementations.

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