Good Morning, Bitcoin - Friday, December 27th, 2024

What's new

• The US Department of the Treasury has finalized its "broker rule." Set to go into effect in 2027, it is meant to regulate the use of non-custodial trading services and establishes that custody over funds is not necessary to be considered a broker by the IRS, reports The Rage.
• Russian companies are using Bitcoin and other digital currencies in international transactions, the Finance Minister says. "As part of the experimental regime, it is possible to use bitcoins, which we had mined here in Russia (in foreign trade transactions). Such transactions are already occurring. We believe they should be expanded and developed further. I am confident this will happen next year," Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Russia 24, as reported by Reuters, adding that such international payments represent the future.
  • In related reports, the Central Bank of Russia is reportedly developing a new surveillance platform to crack down on 'illegal' over-the-counter (OTC) bitcoin trades and related activities. Developed in collaboration with Rosfinmonitoring, the platform aims to centralize information about suspicious activities and enable banks to act preemptively by refusing to open accounts for individuals deemed high-risk.
• Kyrgyz Bakai Bank is suing the Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF) for $1 million for revealing Russia's sanction evasion through Central Asian banks. According to ODF's Lyudmyla Kozlovska, the retaliatory lawsuit proves that the current AML regime "relies on 'trust' with authoritarian and dictatorial states" and enables both "sanctions circumvention through banks controlled by them and their allies" as well as the "abuse of Western legal systems to silence critics."
  • You can aid the non-profit's legal defense and human rights defense work here.
• Rumble CEO teases BTC and USDT tips on the platform. Chris Pavlovski, CEO of YouTube rival Rumble, has hinted at a potential Bitcoin tipping feature for content creators following a $775 million partnership with Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin, USDT.

• $305M hack of Japanese exchange DMM attributed to North Korea. Hackers associated with North Korea stole over 4,500 bitcoin from the Japanese crypto exchange DMM, according to the FBI, Department of Defense, and Japan's police. The attack targeted an employee at the crypto wallet company Ginco, allowing hackers to access its communication system. They then intercepted a legitimate transaction from a DMM employee, resulting in the theft.
• KULR Technology Group acquires 217 bitcoin. The New York Stock Exchange-listed company has announced the acquisition of 217.18 BTC for approximately $21 million, marking the launch of its Bitcoin treasury. The company has selected Coinbase Prime to provide custody services for its coins and plans to allocate up to 90% of its surplus cash into bitcoin.
• Six bitcoin mutual funds to debut in Israel on December 31. Six mutual funds tracking Bitcoin (BTC) will launch in Israel next week following the approval from the Israel Securities Authority (ISA). The final approval for these funds was granted last week.
• Foundry USA returns 8.18 BTC overpaid fee. "On December 19, Foundry USA Pool mined block 875475, which included a Bitcoin transaction where the user inadvertently paid an 8.18 BTC fee— 91,127 times more than necessary to be included in the block. Our team at Foundry has been in touch with the individual affected and, after careful consideration, have decided to refund the transaction fee," said the company.
• Africa’s largest dam generates 18% of its revenue from Bitcoin mining. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam sells 18% of its energy to Bitcoin miners, who have invested over a billion dollars in their operations in the country, according to The Africa Report. Due to Ethiopia’s underdeveloped power grid, much of the dam's energy would have otherwise been wasted.

"Currently, 18% of EEP [Ethiopian Electric Power] monthly sales come from bitcoin mining, up from nothing a year ago. This accounts for more than all of Ethiopia’s power exports to its neighbors. [Bitcoin miners] have a lot of money to invest, and we need lots of money to develop our grid, so it’s a win-win," said Hiwot Eshetu, EEP’s marketing and business development director.

Use the tools

• Nunchuk launched the beta of Taproot multisig wallets on iOS and Android. Taproot Multisig employs Taproot (BIP 341) to make multisignature transactions appear as single-signature transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. This approach enhances user privacy and lowers fees by utilizing Schnorr Signatures and the MuSig2 Protocol.

"Taproot Multisig Wallet represents the next leap forward in Bitcoin self-custody, combining privacy and fee efficiency through cutting-edge cryptographic innovations. We're excited to push Bitcoin multisig technology to new frontiers - so try it out with small amounts, explore the Value Keyset, and stay tuned for further updates on hardware compatibility," said the project.

• Fedimint v0.5.0 comes with the stabilization of version 2 of the Fedimint Lightning module, Tor support for client-federation connections, and improvements in robustness, among other enhancements.
• RaspiBlitz v1.11.4 is a minor release that integrates Alby Hub, along with a few security updates and bug fixes.

• Alby Go v1.8.0 delivers an enhanced UI with pop icons and new transaction icons, verified ownership of Lightning addresses to avoid confusion, support for nostr+walletconnect:// connection URLs, a simplified wallet renaming process, and more.
• Blitz wallet v0.3.6-beta comes with Instant Pay functionality, allowing users to set an amount threshold for invoices that will automatically send if it is below a certain amount. It also updates manual entry for send paths to improve user experience, enhances login security settings, and includes a variety of general bug fixes.
• Blockstream Green Desktop v2.0.16 adds a genuine check flow.
• Ark v0.4.2 release bumps dependencies and provides several fixes to the client SDK.
• Sovran Wallet is now available for beta testing It is a Nostr-powered Cashu wallet available on both Android and iOS.
• CLN Backup is a Core Lightning plugin for automatically uploading secure channel backups to remote locations.
• DTAN.XYZ, a distributed torrent archive on the Nostr protocol, now supports nsec/bunker login.
• Nadge v0.1.0 is a simple Nostr badge client available on the CLI and written in Golang.
• SeedSigner v0.8.5 rc1 is now available for testing.
• SimpleX Chat v6.2.3 brings several important fixes.

Other stuff

• Andreas Antonopoulos has published a video addressing the impending safe-harbor deadline for US-based Bitcoin taxpayers using multiple regulated exchange accounts. Learn more about it here.

• The Open Dialogue Foundation has released a comprehensive report examining the impact of the EU and FATF regulatory frameworks on non-custodial wallets and their users.
• Get Based has published a short film on the origins of the Federal Reserve.

• The HRF's Financial Freedom Report #55 is now available here.
• Awesome BitAxe Gamma offers a collection of resources to enhance your BitAxe Gamma experience.
• NUT-20: Signature on Mint Quote, has been merged into the Cashu protocol specification.

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