Good Morning, Bitcoin - Thursday, January 9th, 2025

What's new

• US Court greenlights sale of $6.5B in seized Silk Road bitcoin. The U.S. government has received final approval from the Northern District Court of California to liquidate 69,370 BTC from federal seizure, ending a four-year legal battle tied to the Silk Road marketplace. Chief Judge Richard Seeborg denied a motion to block the forfeiture, allowing the DOJ to sell the assets valued at $6.5 billion, though immediate liquidation is not guaranteed due to administrative processes.
• 'Bitcoin Freedom Act' introduced in Oklahoma. Sen. Dusty Deevers has proposed the Bitcoin Freedom Act, a legislative initiative to integrate Bitcoin into Oklahoma's economy. The bill, SB325, would allow employees to choose bitcoin as a payment option and enable vendors to accept bitcoin transactions. It guarantees that participation is voluntary, upholding free-market principles and empowering employees, employers, and businesses to select the payment methods that suit them best.

"In a time when inflation is eroding the purchasing power of hard-working Oklahomans, Bitcoin provides a unique opportunity to protect earnings and investments. As Bitcoin continues to rise and the value of the dollar continues to be printed away in Washington D.C., Oklahoma must act to protect our people," Deevers said.

• Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City wants to integrate bitcoin and other digital assets into strategic reserves. Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) in Bhutan has announced plans to recognize digital assets like bitcoin, ether, and BNB as part of its strategic reserves. The inclusion of these assets aims to bolster the GMC's economic resilience and reflects an evolution in the region's involvement in Bitcoin mining.
• Thailand plans to trial KYC'ed bitcoin payments in Phuket for tourists. The country's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira announced a new initiative during a seminar organized by the Marketing Association of Thailand, reports Nation Thailand. Foreign tourists in the pilot program may be able to register their coin through a Thai exchange and verify their identities before using the coins to purchase goods and services. A clearing house would subsequently convert the coins into Thai baht.
• Thai police seizes 996 Bitcoin miners amid energy theft allegations. The Bankgkok Post reports that local police and electricity officials in Chon Buri's Phanat Nikhom district seized 996 Bitcoin mining machines from a company accused of illegally stealing large amounts of electricity to power the operations.
• Ethiopia reaches 1.5% share of global Bitcoin hashrate. Chinese firm BIT Mining has expanded into Africa by acquiring a Bitcoin mining facility in Ethiopia for $14.28 million. Finalized on December 3, this strategic move positions Ethiopia as a significant contributor to the global Bitcoin network hash rate at 1.5%, comparable to Norway's importance, reports Atlas21.
• El Salvador has added another 11 BTC to its Bitcoin reserves, bringing the total to more than 6,022 coins. The country has been acquiring bitcoin at an accelerated pace since December 19, following its loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
• UK authorities seize $4.3 million worth of bitcoin held in Coinbase Kenya account from a fugitive drug lord. A UK judge mandated the seizure after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) revealed that Surin had provided only two fake invoices and failed to explain his wealth following previous asset seizures. In an email, Surin claimed there was "no evidence" of his criminal involvement and that the coins were lawfully earned through gold bullion trading in Dubai.
• Applications to Summer of Bitcoin 2025 to commence on February 1, 2025. Summer of Bitcoin is a global online internship program designed to introduce university students to Bitcoin open-source development and design. You can sign up for an application reminder here.
• Bitcoin Diploma for Veterans by OPERATION BITCOIN. Pre-enrollment is now open for the January 2025 Cohort of the Bitcoin Diploma for Veterans. Enrollment closes January 20 and spaces are limited. This 10-week course is designed to equip attendees with the fundamental knowledge to confidently engage with Bitcoin. Enroll here.

Use the tools

• The legacy BDK v0.30.1 crate release is a patch for a regression in Electrum syncing introduced in 0.30.0. "This release also officially deprecates the `bdk` crate, please migrate to the new `bdk_wallet` 1.0.0," said the Bitcoin Dev Kit team. The project will continue to publish bdk 0.30.x bug fix releases as needed, but only for a limited time.
• Fully Noded Server v0.0.5-beta is now available on the iOS App Store. It serves as a one-click solution for Bitcoin Core, Core Lightning, and Join Market servers, allowing connections to Fully Noded apps. This version includes an improved Bitcoin Core view, and Bitcoin Core now defaults to v27.2.

"Installing, verifying, running AND USING YOUR NODE has never been easier on macOS," said the developer.

• Tando v1.1.9, a Bitcoin payments app that allows merchants to accept KYC-free bitcoin payments in Kenya via M-Pesa, introduces improvements to the payment confirmation screen, fixes a time zone bug, adds a new Orange-Pill graphic, and enhances the app's layout, among other updates.
• Bitcoin purchases are now live in the Blockstream Green wallet on both Android and iOS.

• The latest Stacker.news release implements fixes for iOS push notifications.
• Swiss Bitcoin Pay app v2.3.1 has been release with several fixes.
• Liana wallet v9.0rc1 is now available for testing.
• Keet v3.17.0, a peer-to-peer chat app built with the Holepunch protocol, has been released for both mobile and desktop platforms. The mobile apps introduce express profile setup, support for SVG and HEIC image files, and an audio tab in the Media & File section. The desktop app includes express ID setup, a notification badge display on the dock, and many other improvements and fixes.
• Arti v1.3.2, a next-generation Tor client written in Rust, includes preparatory work for relay support and service-side onion service denial-of-service resistance.
• Tor Browser v14.0.4 has been released.
• GrapheneOS v2025010700 is a January 2025 security patch release.

Other stuff

• Stacker.news user Scoresby has written an explainer on the importance of running an economic Bitcoin node.

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