2022W17 - WTF happened in Bitcoin this week?
Bitcoin is just like a currency now, but better.
TLDR: Bitcoin Legal Tender in Central African Republic, Panama legalizes Bitcoin, Fidelity allows Bitcoin on retirement accounts, Bitcoin starts to feel like a currency in the U.S. through Bitrefill.
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.
This week the Central African Republic (CAR) has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender, and with it, becoming the second nation state in the world to officially adopt BTC as a lawful currency, enabling its citizens to use it in regular day to day commerce, and even to pay their taxes.
It is true that CAR is a small country, and it is also true that El Salvador is also a small country, but now it is not only one crazy little country doing something “reckless”, but an official movement, where countries without an official own national currency, might start to see the incentive of the potential benefit for their population in the long term, and just as the marketing that comes behind of announcing such move and attracting both tourism and investments.
Right after this announcement, Panama followed by approving a legislation to regulate Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets in the country, taking the industry out of the current grey zone in terms of regulations.
Despite creating a framework for the usage of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as payment methods in the Panamanian economy, the country is not making bitcoin a legal tender in a similar fashion to El Salvador or the Central African Republic, but the country seems to have the right incentives to do so in the future.
So the big question remains: Will Panama be next?
“Two more countries making bitcoin legal tender this year is still in play” - Nayib Bukele
THE NEWS!
1. Panama Assembly passes bill regulating bitcoin
2. Forth Worth, becomes the first city to start mining bitcoin. The Texas Blockchain Council has donated three S9 bitcoin miners to Fort Worth, Texas for a six-month trial allowing the city to experience mining from within.
3. U.S. users can now pay their bills with bitcoin through Bitrefill’s new Bill Payments service, including taxes.
4. Fidelity, investment giant, will enable its 23,000 business clients to offer Bitcoin accounts for their workers’ 401(k)s later this year, and MicroStrategy will be the first publicly traded employer to offer it.
5. SkyBridge joins and also will offer bitcoin 401(k) through Fidelity’s products to their employees.
6. The Human Rights foundation will grant 5 bitcoin to Bitcoin projects on software development, community building, censorship monitoring, translation and design.
7. The bitcoin mining council releases numbers:
Bitcoin mining energy uses only 0.16% when compared to the worlds total energy
Bitcoin Mining Council have the highest sustainable energy mix with reported numbers of 64.6%
Global Bitcoin Mining has a sustainable energy mix of 58.4%.
8. Revolut is working on a "decentralized" wallet for Bitcoin deposits, withdrawals, staking and lending.
9. The Lightning Network community Diamond Hands partnered with ZEBEDEE and Mimesis Capital to further adoption in Asia through bitcoin gaming and education.
10. DAMAC, a Dubai’s real estate giant, will soon begin accepting bitcoin as payment in its property sales as the UAE seeks to become a cryptocurrency hub.
11. Goldman Sachs has reportedly offered its first bitcoin-backed loan.
12. In partnership with Coinstar, Coinme deployed 23 bitcoin-enabled kiosks across Vermont allowing the residents to trade cash for bitcoin in local grocery stores.
13. Riot Blockchain will begin developing a 1 GW facility in Navarro County, Texas expected to create 270 jobs and drive economic growth during its first phase.
14. CleanSpark closed a $35 million, non-dilutive financing deal by collateralizing over 3,000 miners with a 9.9% interest rate to fuel growth expenditures.
15. Magma is a new Lightning liquidity marketplace by Amboss Technologies aiming to protect buyers and sellers with simple smart contracts and reputation features.
16. German bank, Raiffeisen Volksbank Bayern Mitte, now offers customers direct access to bitcoin cold storage.
FUNDAMENTALS
Even though the price does not resemble a bullish trend, it is interesting to notice that there is a lot of bitcoin flowing out of exchanges. Just this year there was a reduction of 200,000 bitcoin from the exchanges balance, or one could say about ~1700 bitcoin less per day. This is almost double the daily issuance (900). If the demand keeps increasing, we might be close to seeing some big movements ahead of us.
As a summary note..
The energy debate continues, the World Economic Forum continues to lie to its citizens with unfounded or debunked information, and somehow they dare to not even delete it. Just like in 2017, they predicted bitcoin using more energy in 2020 than the world consuming was consuming back then, and now, saying that Bitcoin alone could warm the world by 2°C degrees.
All meanwhile Bitcoin continues to use…wait for it.. 0.16% of the worlds energy.
But there is more.. The global sustainability source of that energy is 58.4%, and rising, as bitcoin thrives from cheap energy, incentivicing the production of renewable energy in remote locations allowing communities thrive, which otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to built infrastructure without an energy buyer of last resort.
So there we go, bitcoin seems to be under attack by the World Economic Forum, and it is our duty to protect it, just as it protects our wealth.
Have a great weekend niblings.
Stay humble & stack sats.
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