Good Morning, Bitcoin - Friday, January 17th, 2025

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News

• Trump to designate cryptocurrency as a national priority. President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to issue an executive order to prioritize Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a key policy issue and include industry experts in his administration. The executive order, which could come as soon as Monday, is expected to designate cryptocurrencies as a national priority, directing government agencies to collaborate with the industry on policy issues and potentially pause ongoing litigation involving industry activities, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
• Senator Cynthia Lummis demands FDIC to halt destruction of Operation Chokepoint 2.0 materials. According to the Senator, whistleblowers from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) have raised concerns about the destruction of materials related to the agency's digital asset activities. They allege that management is closely monitoring staff access to these materials to prevent their disclosure to the Senate before they are destroyed. Furthermore, some employees have reportedly faced threats of legal action to deter them from speaking out.

"The FDIC’s alleged efforts to destroy and conceal materials from the U.S. Senate related to Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is not only unacceptable, it is illegal. If it is uncovered that anyone within the FDIC has knowingly destroyed materials or sought to obstruct the oversight functions of the Senate, it will result in swift criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice," Lummis said in a public letter.

• Lummis has also expressed urgent concern in a letter to the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service regarding their plan to dispose of nearly 70,000 BTC seized from the Silk Road case.
• Block Inc fined $80 million for insufficient money laundering controls in Cash App. Block Inc. has agreed to pay an $80 million fine to 48 state financial regulators for inadequate anti-money laundering protocols in Cash App. As part of the settlement, Block Inc. will hire an independent consultant to review and report on its Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering program. Additionally, the company has agreed to implement corrective actions internally, as announced by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.
• Coin Center Fellow Michael Lewellen sues the DOJ over criminalization of software development. Michael Lewellen, a Coin Center Fellow and smart contract security expert, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) for their restrictive interpretation of unlicensed money transmission statutes.

"Michael should be free to build and publish the brilliant software he’s been working on—free from fear of unjust persecution. And the contrary position taken by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet prosecutions is unconstitutional and anti-innovation," said Coin Center in a blog post.

• Coinbase unveils public beta of Onchain Reputation API. The public surveillance tool is meant to provide a 'reputation score' between -100 and +1000 for wallet addresses, ENS, and Basename IDs, offering a "directional indication of its reputation" to "evaluate transaction trustworthiness."

• Coinbase has also announced the launch of "Bitcoin-backed loans" using its own shitcoin protocol, Base. "These loans are not backed by bitcoin, nor are they even on the Bitcoin blockchain," writes Guillaume Girard for Bitcoin Magazine.
• White House issues an executive order to bolster federal cybersecurity. US President Joe Biden has signed a comprehensive cybersecurity directive aimed at enhancing the government's monitoring of networks, procurement of software, utilization of artificial intelligence (AI), and penalties for foreign hackers.
  • This 40-page executive order is the Biden administration's last push to leverage AI for security, introduce digital identities for US citizens, and address vulnerabilities that have allowed foreign actors to infiltrate US government systems.
  • It is unclear if President-elect Donald Trump will pursue these cybersecurity initiatives after taking office on Monday.
• Vinteum issues grant to plebhash for advancing the Stratum V2 protocol. The non-profit Bitcoin research and development center, dedicated to supporting Bitcoin developers in Brazil and the wider Latin America region, has announced its fourth grantee, plebhash, in acknowledgment of his significant contributions to the Stratum V2 protocol (SRI) and his initiatives to promote the decentralization of Bitcoin mining.

"Plebhash exemplifies the values we strive to promote at Vinteum: collaboration, innovation, and dedication to developing open-source solutions to strengthen the Bitcoin ecosystem. We are excited to support his work and look forward to the impact he will have on the community," said the organization.

Use the tools

• River has launched ForceField, a new security feature designed to enhance user account protection. It restricts Bitcoin and cash withdrawals if a user's device is lost or stolen, if the user is targeted in a cyber or physical attack, or if account credentials are compromised. Learn more about it here.

• BlueWallet v7.0.7 is now available. New features include importing used xpub as zpub/ypub, a new wallet export screen, display of Lightning details in the invoice view, the ability to set a preferred server from the menu, Android menu icons, and a variety of other bug fixes and improvements.
• Nunchuk Android v1.9.59 and iOS v1.9.69 have been released.
• Minibits v0.1.11-beta, an Android ecash wallet with a focus on performance and usability, has been released.

"This is a maintenance release bundling all important fixes and stability improvements delivered through over-the-air releases in December - January. Functionally it is an equivalent to the version 0.1.10-beta.23," was stated in the release notes.

• 0xchat v1.4.6, a Nostr-based encrypted chat app with a built-in ecash wallet, has added a reactions, as well as mention notification button to chats, along with multiple bug fixes.
• Amber v3.1.8, a Nostr signer for Android, includes a button to clear cached data in settings, displays relay status in notifications, and fixes an issue with multiple bunker requests not clearing when accepting or rejecting events.

Other stuff

• Bushido of Bitcoin: A Code of Virtue for a World on a New Economic Standard by Alexandar Svetski is a book that challenges the Bitcoin community to look beyond capital. It presents a ten-virtue framework for cultivating leaders who can rise above mediocrity, resist corruption, and create strong, prosperous societies.

• Bitcoin Optech #337 covers ongoing discussions about rewarding pool miners with tradeable ecash shares and introduces a new proposal for off-chain resolution of Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs).
• The HRF's Financial Freedom Report #57 is now available on Nostr.
• b10c published an analysis of fifteen OFAC-sanctioned transactions missing from Bitcoin blocks.

"While all transactions were picked up in the following blocks, it seems like F2Pool started to filter them (again)," said the developer.

• NunyaBidness shared an article discussing the concept of a Forest Walker and how forest management could leverage Bitcoin mining to help reduce the risk of forest fires.
• BTC Sessions made a new tutorial about Bitcoin home mining on your own mining pool with FutureBit's Apollo II full node and Bitcoin miner.

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