Good Morning, Bitcoin - Saturday, March 1st, 2025

Good morning, Bitcoin builders, privacy enthusiasts, and freedom seekers around the world. Here are some recent updates you might find useful. Have a great weekend.

News

• Bitcoin miners have been hit hard by low fees and tumbling prices. Bitcoin's mining profitability fell below $50/PH/s due to market turbulence, reaching its lowest point since mid-November. Transaction fees totaled 163 BTC by the end of February, accounting for just 1.33% of block rewards, reports by The Miner Mag.
• Mozilla deletes the promise to never sell personal data. Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, deleted a promise to never sell users' personal data, prompting user concerns. The company is now trying to reassure users that its privacy approach remains unchanged.
• European states race to enable encryption backdoors. European policymakers continue to advance various proposals and regulations that could severely compromise the privacy and security of European citizens.
  • A new French law amendment would require encrypted services to provide law enforcement access within 72 hours, with non-compliance fines of €1.5 million for individuals and 2% of global turnover for companies.
• Meanwhile, in Sweden, the government is pushing for encrypted messaging apps like Signal to implement similar E2EE backdoors, which could become law as soon as March 2026.
• Member countries of the European Union are still attempting to discover a 'viable' way to implement chat control. The EU working group will continue to negotiate the issue in March.

• U.S. SEC drops high-profile 'crypto' cases. In a notable regulatory pivot, the agency closed its investigations into Coinbase, Gemini, Uniswap, Robinhood Metamask, OpenSea, Richard Heart.
  • Additionally, the agency issued a statement on meme coins, clarifying that most of them are not considered securities.

"The offer and sale of meme coins does not involve an investment in an enterprise nor is it undertaken with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others," said the agency, adding that fraudulent conduct related to the offer and sale of meme coins may still be subject to enforcement action.

• Nigeria introduces Digital Asset Transaction tax. Nigerian officials plan to amend digital asset regulations to tax transactions and boost state revenues. The Nigerian SEC is reviewing a framework to tax transactions on regulated exchanges to extract more value from the growing digital asset sector.
• Texas moves toward a strategic Bitcoin reserve. The Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee unanimously approved the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SB 21) bill with a 9-0 vote. The bill now advances to the state Senate for further discussion.
• Tropic Square TROPIC01 open-source secure element samples now available. Tropic Square, a startup backed by SatoshiLabs—the company behind Trezor signing devices—has unveiled its pre-production samples ahead of the mass production and market launch of their open-source TROPIC01 secure element, designed for use in Bitcoin hardware.

• Metamask confirms it will add Bitcoin-native support this year. The popular 'crypto' wallet said that it plans to launch full Bitcoin support in the third quarter of this year.
• Bitcoin miner TeraWulf sees 102% year-over-year revenue growth. The firm's full-year revenue rose 102% to $140.1 million from $69.2 million in 2023, driven by increased Bitcoin production and higher prices. As of December 31, the company held 1,801 BTC.
• Blockstream opens applications for Lugano Research Hub grants. The grants are open for builders seeking to develop on Lightning or Liquid, and come with a 10,000 CHF sponsorship for founders and small startup teams to set up and live in Lugano.
• Baltic Honeybadger 2025 are now on sale. The "most OG Bitcoin conference" is set to take place on August 9-10, 2025 in Riga, Latvia. The event will occur right after the bitcoin++ privacy edition, scheduled for August 7-8.

Use the tools

• umbrelOS v1.4 is now available. It comes with a brand new file manager that turns Umbrel into a full-blown home cloud. This release also includes support for external storage devices (USB) on Umbrel Home, various bug fixes, and performance improvements.
• Alby Go v1.10.0 is now available with support for Pick n Pay QRs and integration of BTC Map.
• BitBanana v0.9.0 implements Coin Control support, adds a 'send all' option, and enables the use of custom block explorers and regtest nodes.
• Flash Wallet beta (not to be confused with the Flash app by Dread) is now available for testing. It is a self-custodial Lightning and Liquid wallet for merchants, built with Breez SDK. Upcoming features include offline transactions, point-of-sale tools, and automated payments.

• Blockstream Green iOS v4.1.7 updates translations and adds a language preference option in the app settings.
• Core Lightning v25.02 rc3 is now available for testing.
• Mostro v0.13.2, a Lightning Network peer-to-peer exchange platform on Nostr, is out with the latest fixes and improvements.
• Unchained now supports native SegWit addresses. New vaults now use SegWit addresses by default, and existing vaults can be upgraded.
• Plebeian.Market added new step-by-step instructions for new users, smarter dashboard tools, and enhanced social sharing functions, alongside some bug fixes.
• Nostr.world by Vertex provides the most reliable and fastest search of Nostr profiles.
• Algo Relay v0.2 comes with the ability for users to log in with Nostr and adjust their own algorithms, as well as observe the data the algorithm uses to make your feed.

• Corny Chat v2025.02, an open-source audio space built on Jam that integrates Nostr and Lightning, added room indicators for active rooms, new admin tools, support for permanent rooms, and more.
• TollGate, a project that enables WiFi routers to accept bitcoin payments for internet access, now has a beautiful website.
• CowBolt app beta is now available for testing. This app is for splitting costs and bills using Bitcoin on-chain, Lightning, Liquid, and USDT. It also includes a team chat feature.
• Atlas21 launched a Bitcoin State Adoption Tracker. It shows new legislative proposals and the status of existing ones, the number of BTC held by major countries, the stance of local central banks, and the latest news from key nations.
• NerdQAxe firmware v1.0.26 is now available. It includes NerdHaxe Gamma support, improved web UI connection stability, a Global Stats screen, and more.
• Coinos.io is now available as a native Android app. "We're currently seeking internal testers to help us get into the Google Play Store as well. If you're willing to help with that, please join the testing program here," said the developers.

Other stuff

• Bitcoin Optech #343 summarizes a post about having full nodes ignore transactions that are relayed without being requested first.
• The Human Rights Foundation's Weekly Financial Freedom report #63 is now available.
• Abubakar Nur Khalil wrote an article on the top 15 Bitcoin conferences to attend in 2025.

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