Good Morning, Bitcoin - Tuesday, January 14th, 2025

GM and happy Lightning Whitepaper Day!

A huge thanks to SoundMoney=Prosperity4ALL for supporting No Bullshit Bitcoin with 210,000 sats and sharing the following custom shoutout:

"3 recent/ upcoming super high-signal Bitcoin media works: (in chrono order): Kelly & Brian Estes - "God Bless Bitcoin" film July 2024, Charlene H. Fadirepo - "The Bitcoin Leap" Oct., and 2024 Larry Lepard - "The Big Print" Feb. 2025 (expected release). Enjoy, & spread the word!"

News

• Bitcoin mining difficulty has hit a new high of 110.45T, marking the eighth consecutive upward adjustment.

• Operators of Blender and Sinbad custodial Bitcoin mixers arrested and charged with money laundering. "By allegedly operating these mixers, the defendants made it easier for state-sponsored hacking groups and other cybercriminals to profit from offenses that jeopardized both public safety and national security," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent Wible.
• New CFPB rulemaking makes no distinction between custodial and self-custody wallets. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to reinterpret the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) to include cryptocurrency activities. However, the proposal does not differentiate between cryptocurrency services offered by trusted intermediaries, which could be subject to consumer protection regulations, and software tools for self-securing digital assets, which are considered protected speech and should not be subject to regulatory permissions, writes Coin Center.
• Kenya is preparing to legalize cryptocurrencies, according to Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi, indicating a shift in government stance. Although cryptocurrencies have been banned in the country, widespread public use has persisted underground, circumventing the restrictions.

"The Government of Kenya is committed to creating the necessary legal and regulatory framework in order to leverage opportunities presented by VAs and VASPs while managing the resultant risks," Mbadi said.

• Strategic Bitcoin Reserve legislation in New Hampshire and North Dakota. New Hampshire and North Dakota have introduced legislation to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, indicating a rising interest among state lawmakers in diversifying their state treasuries with bitcoin.
• BlackRock has launched the iShares Bitcoin ETF in Canada. The ETF, trading under the ticker IBIT, replicates bitcoin's price performance by investing in the US-listed iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. All of the bitcoin purchased via the ETF is held with Coinbase Prime.
• Singapore blocks access to Polymarket, following Taiwan and France. The country's Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) has directed local internet service providers to block access to the prediction market platform. The agency is yet to make a public announcement on the issue.
• The latest publicly announced bitcoin purchases include:
  • MicroStrategy, a Bitcoin development company, acquired another 2,530 BTC for $243 million. It currently holds 450,000 coins.
• Semler Scientific bought 237 BTC and now holds 2321 coins on its balance sheet.
• Genius Group has purchased an additional $5 million worth of Bitcoin and currently holds 372 BTC acquired for approximately $35 million.
• Remixpoint, a Tokyo-listed energy consulting firm, has announced a purchase of 33.34 BTC. The company now holds 333.19 coins.
• Heritage Distilling adopts Bitcoin as a strategic asset. The company has released its Bitcoin Treasury Policy statement and said it will accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.
• Italian Bank Intesa Sanpaolo has purchased 11 BTC for approximately €1 million.
• Fulgar Ventures led a $58 million funding round for the crypto bank Sygnum. Sygnum, already licensed in Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Singapore, intends to use the new capital to expand further into the European market and establish a regulated presence in Hong Kong.
• Pieter Wuille and Gregory Maxwell awarded The Finney Freedom Prize by the Human Rights Foundation for the 2012-2016 era, recognizing their contributions to Bitcoin's usability, scalability, and privacy. Learn more about the prize here.

Use the tools

• Wasabi Wallet v2.4.0 introduces support for sending to Silent Payment addresses, adds a donate button, implements Testnet 4 support, provides release notes in the client, and includes several bug fixes.
• Blockstream Green Desktop v2.0.17 adds graphical assets for Jade Plus, supports video promos on Linux, and shows the total spent amount in transaction details. The default fee rate has been set to the 24 block fee rate estimate.
• Bitcoin Keeper v1.3.3 redesigns Electrum Server Management, adds remote signing support for Keystone devices, includes PDF export for individual wallet configuration files, and brings UI improvements along with general bug fixes.
• Stratum V2 Reference Implementation (SRI) v1.2.1 is a patch release for a bug on roles_logic_sv2 crate that manifested while mining on testnet4.

"Now, non-future jobs are always created by using the original timestamp defined by the Template Provider," said the developers.

• SoloSatoshi unveils BitAxe Touch home miner. The device is powered by the Bitaxe 601 Gamma, which uses the BM1370 ASIC chip from the Bitmain S21 Pro, reaching a hash rate of up to 1.6 TH/s. It features an 800×480 pixel touchscreen LCD that serves as a personal command center for all Bitcoin-related activities.

• Mempal v1.4.3 has been released with an accrescent compatibility patch, minor optimizations, and bug fixes.
• Bitcoin Fee Indicator is a system tray app that fetches and displays the current Bitcoin transaction fee rates. It runs on Linux with GTK 3 and AppIndicator support.
• Utrexxo v0.3.0, a hash-based dynamic accumulator based on a Merkle forest, has been released.
• ShockWallet v0.0.16-beta has been released with a basic offers UI.
• Swiss Bitcoin Pay app v2.3.3 has been released with several smaller fixes.
• Nostur v1.17.0, aa Nostr client for iOS, now syncs already seen and read notes across multiple devices, supports the of Olas pictures (kind:20), implements support for Frost/multis login, and adds an undelete button for deleted posts, among many other improvements and bug fixes.
• The latest updates for Corny Chat, an open source audio space built on Jam that integrates Nostr and Lightning, limit image uploads to Nostr users, implement GIF search via GifBuddy.lol, and add multiple custom emoji and room chat improvements.
• Amber v3.1.7, a Nostr event signer for Android, has been released.
• Cashu Dev Kit v0.6.1 (cdk-mintd) is now available.
• Mullvad VPN's Split Tunneling is now available on macOS. It allows users to exclude specific apps from the VPN, enabling you to use services that don't work well with VPNs.
• SimpleX Chat v6.2.4 is now available with multiple fixes and enhancements.

Other stuff

• Bitcoin Diploma 2025 by Mi Primer Bitcoin is a flagship, free, and open-source 10-week program worldwide, offering an in-depth exploration of Bitcoin's history, technology, and global impact.
• Awesome Privacy is a curated list of free, open-source, and privacy-respecting services.
• Lightning.news is a new website dedicated to news about the Lightning Network.
• Bitsbetrippin shared a review of two Auradine AT2880 miners, which achieved an efficiency of approximately 17 J/TH after two days of testing.
• The HRF's Financial Freedom report #56 is available here.

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