Good Morning, Bitcoin - Wednesday, January 8th, 2025

News

• Coinbase user sentenced to 2 years for Bitcoin tax fraud to surrender access to $124M bitcoin fortune. Frank Richard Ahlgren III now owes the government around $1 million in restitution from the criminal case and must provide any physical devices, along with any public keys, private keys, seed phrases or passphrases used to store the coins, ruled the U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman on Monday in federal court in Austin, Texas.
• Bitcoin Policy UK released guidance and commentary to UK's The Crypto Asset Reporting Framework 2025. "What’s being proposed? Under the Crypto Asset Reporting Framework or CARF, it’s proposed that tax authorities worldwide will gather and have access to information on cryptocurrency transactions, allegedly to combat tax evasion and ensure compliance with tax laws," said the organization.
• Governors of the Czech National Bank (CNB) are open to the idea of including Bitcoin in the country's foreign exchange reserves, though no concrete plans are in place yet. Currently, the CNB's diversification strategy aims to increase its gold holdings, targeting a gold share of about 5% of total assets by 2028. The investment in bitcoin would be minor for the bank and would need approval from its seven-member board.

• Thumzup Media Corp adds 9.783 BTC to its reserves. The purchase cost approximately $1 million, at an average price of $102,220 per coin. The company's management is seeking approval from its Board of Directors to allocate up to 90% of its liquid assets for ongoing Bitcoin purchases as part of its Treasury Asset Strategy, as stated in a press release.
• South Korea’s financial regulator plans to gradually permit institutional investment in cryptocurrencies, according to local media reports. Under the country’s act on financial information use, only retail traders verified with their government names can trade cryptocurrencies. While there is no formal ban on institutional investors, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has advised banks to prevent institutions from opening accounts on exchanges, reports The Block.
• Kazakhstan shut down 36 illegal cryptocurrency exchanges in 2024 as part of its efforts to combat money laundering. Licensed global exchanges, including Binance, Bybit, Upbit, and others, continue to operate legally in the country. Among the platforms that went offline, two were identified as operating pyramid schemes. So far, the Kazakh government has shut down over 3,500 unlicensed crypto exchanges in cooperation with government agencies.
• Fitch Ratings upgrades El Salvador's credit rating to B- following IMF loan agreement. "Fitch expects the program to support implementation of fiscal consolidation measures which... should reduce financing needs,” the agency stated. These efforts are expected to foster a more stable fiscal environment, potentially enabling future debt issuances, reports TFTC.
• Canaan introduces Avalon Mini 3 and Nano 3S Bitcoin home miners and heaters. Canaan unveiled the Avalon Mini 3 at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. This device is a 37.5 TH/s Bitcoin miner that also functions as a home heater.
  • The Avalon Nano 3S is an upgraded version of the well-received Avalon Nano 3, featuring a hashrate of 6 TH/s. This device is designed as an affordable, beginner-friendly Bitcoin mining option, complementing the Avalon Mini 3.
• The Bitcoin City hackathon by Bitcoin Indonesia. The event is set to take place online from January 10 to 31. Learn more about it here.
• Bitcoin Circular Economy Summit in El Zonte. The three-day event is scheduled for January 27-29th, right before the PlanB Forum: El Salvador.

Use the tools

• Bitcoin Core v28.1 has been tagged.
• Alby Hub v1.13.0 brings "some cool new apps to the app store, an auto-unlock feature for self-hosted hubs, extra information about pending closed channels, and some security improvements for isolated apps and budgeting."
• Bitkit wallet v1.0.8 introduces a new liquidity management policy for "flexible and optimized Lightning channel management," along with various fixes and enhancements.
• Blockstream Green Android v4.1.2 bumps GDK version to 0.74.2.
• AxeOS v2.4.5 (ESP-miner) provides a critical fix for BitAxe devices without a PSRAM module, addressing issues for users who experienced a black screen when updating to the latest version. Also available on a web flasher.
• Kyoto v0.7.0, a simple, memory-conservative, and private Bitcoin client for developers to build wallet applications, has been released.
• Daniele released Nstart, a new user onboarding tool for the Nostr protocol. Check it out here.

"Nstart aims to guide new users to Nostr offering a easy and no-nonsense onboarding wizard, with useful hints about the protocol and some really exclusive features," said the developer. These include:

• Easy local backup of your nsec or ncryptsec;
• Email yourself your ncryptsec, as additional backup location;
• Create a multi-signer bunker URL for Nostr Connect;
• Auto follow the contacts list of some old and trusted Nostr users;
• Customize of contact suggestions, useful for onboarding friends & family.

• Primal Android v2.0.36 removes trailing empty spaces from tags in Nostr events and prevents crashes when returning to the home screen and then tapping the home icon too quickly.
• LNp2pbot v0.12.0, a peer-to-peer Lightning network trading bot on Telegram, introduces an important security improvement that prevents imposters from impersonating the bot and sending fake invoices.
• Decentralized Game Mods (DEG Mods) is a Nostr-based platform for mod creators, allowing them to thrive without the fear of censorship bans, or losing their connection with fans.
• OpenSecret (ex-Mutiny) is looking for private beta testers for its upcoming private and end-to-end encrypted Maple AI chat.

Other stuff

• An explainer on Pay To Public Key Hash (P2PKH) by The Bitcoin Dev Project is available here.

• Bitvocation has released its Bitcoin job market report for 2024. Find the latest insights here.

• Denis Rusinovich, a partner at the Cryptocurrency Mining Group, explains the Bitcoin mining situation and regulations in Russia in the latest episode of The Miner Pod.
• BTC Sessions has created a step-by-step tutorial for Bitkey wallet users.

• Do you want more? Subscribe and get No Bullshit GM report straight to your mailbox.
• Follow No Bullshit Bitcoin on Nostr.
• Feedback or news tips? Drop it here.