2021W33 - WTF has happened in bitcoin this week?
Bitcoin is interoperable.
TLDR: Remittances for zero fees, North American Miners taking a lead, JPMorgan and WellsFargo offering Bitcoin funds, Price Surging.
Hey there niblings, it’s uncle Bam again, with a summary of the most insightful events in the Bitcoin space. Back at it again digesting all the important news for you.
The week has been a blessing in terms of price, giving hope to many newcomers of 2021 which are finally back in profit or about to get there as the price ranges around $49,000 at the time of writing. It should be noted that by Dollar Cost Averaging, anyone would probably be sitting on profit, which is why we advocate of bitcoin being a Savings technology, not an Investment. As the price trends up, the optimism of the community do so too, and the curiosity spikes in the bitcoin space.
About Lightning
The Lightning network continues to be used as rails for instant settlement between countries. This week Bitnob announced to have integrated their product to the Lightning Network, this opens the opportunity to have free and instant non-reversible remittances of any size from the United States, Nigeria and Ghana. As Jack said in his tweet, $10 in a US Bank can become spendable in NGN in seconds through Strike and Bitnob.
The amazing thing is that these two companies just by being hooked to Bitcoin’s open monetary network can operate with each other, without the need of having a commercial relationship. It only takes a financial network from any country to connect to the Lightning Network, in order to be part of these revolution.
Open networks will win.
“Get lost WesterUnion. It was fun while it lasted” - Jack Mallers
The thread:
And this is how the week started.
0. We are less than 3 weeks away for bitcoin to become legal tender in El Salvador.
1. Walmart's search to hire a “Digital Currency And Cryptocurrency Product Lead” could be promising for Bitcoin.
2. Jehudi Castro Sierra, advisor to Iván Duque Márquez, The President of Colombia, Called Bitcoin The “Most Brilliant Piece Of Software Ever”
3. CNBC portraying BTC as a Store Of Value isn't pessimistic as it outlines the electronic cash's path to full monetization.
4. Publicly-traded Urban Television Network announced they acquired 200 bitcoin miners and are expanding their operations to include mining bitcoin starting in November.
5. Bitcoin has become the main focus for the Digital Assets division of Fidelity Investments, since 90% of their clients are asking about it.
6. Lloyds Banking Group, the U.K.-based bank, is looking for a Digital Currency Manager. The move comes after Walmart and Amazon have announced to expand their teams in the digital currency space.
7. Galaxy Digital has filed with the SEC for a Bitcoin Futures Exchange-traded Fund under the Investment Company Act of 1940.
8. Spinesmith Holdings, will convert their balance sheet to Bitcoin for long term holding as a hedge against inflation and to protect from bank overreach.
9. Zion, a novel Social network, onboards users to the Lightning Network to free them from big tech censorship, revenue restrictions and data collection.
10. Billionaire Peter Thiel’s publicly-traded Palantir Technologies Inc. invites customers to pay in bitcoin for its data analytics software.
11. Jack Dorsey, CEO and founder of Square and Twitter, announced that he is using Compass Mining, a company that sells hardware and rents out space in mining facilities around the world, to mine bitcoin.
12. Coinbase announced to buy $500 million in bitcoin and alternative currencies for its own balance sheet. They also said to be launching in Japan through a new partnership with one of the largest banks in the country, Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG) Financial Group.
13. Worldline, the payment services giant joined a major bitcoin solutions provider to increase BTC usage in Switzerland as a medium of exchange, giving access to 85,000 merchants in their network to accept bitcoin in their point-of-sale and e-commerce.
14. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, two of the largest North American Banks, have filed for Passive Bitcoin Funds for their wealthy clients. This comes after a long history track of banks closing accounts for Bitcoiners.
15. Shervin Aazami, becomes probably the first candidate for Congress in U.S. to accept bitcoin donations in The Lightning Network.
“Lighting Node allows each of us to send and accept donations at near zero cost, whereas most other sites require a processing fee.” - Shervin.
16. Zee BestRestaurant, on the Caribbean island of St. Marteen now accepts Bitcoin. This is an example on how easy is for anyone to join an open network, and how the community achieves great lengths, as the incentive of a Bitcoiner, is to achieve global adoption.
FUNDAMENTALS
The Supply held by Long-Term Bitcoin Holders has reached new all-time highs. These entities now hold 12,674,515 bitcoin, which approximates to 67% of supply or 84% when adjusting for lost coins.
If there is any uncertainty of where the price of bitcoin is heading? Well, just remember that there is a majority of people, who strongly believe that bitcoin is heavily undervalued, as its potential long term, is unique.
As a summary note..
The Chinese ban on bitcoin mining may be remembered in history as the biggest opportunity harnessed by North American miners. Some of the public traded mining companies have shared their quarterly results, showing a massive increase in the amount of bitcoins mined compared to previous quarters.
Bitfarms mined 758 BTC vs. 598 BTC the quarter prior.
Hut 8 mined 553 BTC cvs. 539 in the quarter prior.
Marathon Digital Holdings mined 654 BTC vs. 192 the quarter prior.
Riot Blockchain mined 676 BTC vs. 491 BTC in the quarter prior.
Everyone seems to be hodling and/or accumulating, are you?
Have a great weekend niblings.
Stay humble & stack sats.
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