2022W26 - WTF happened in Bitcoin this week?
Bitcoin is lightning fast.
TLDR: El Salvador buys the dip. MicroStrategy buys the dip. Development in Lightning is going wild.
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 is another week which looks grim in terms of price, and it is easy to get the feeling of “What if I am wrong”, as one continuously sees their thesis not play out as expected before your own eyes, specially if you feel heavily invested or if you feel there is not any other alternative than Bitcoin.
Let me tell you something, YOU ARE NOT ALONE, and Bitcoin will definitely thrive. But let’s remind ourselves something important: Bitcoin’s appreciation is not a guarantee, nor happens from one day to another. This is a human movement, and it involves massive and often constant education in order to realize the great potential, benefits and freedom that an apolitical, digital & scarce monetary commodity can offer to society.
Just this week, a glimpse of hope was shed from our beloved friends Michael Saylor and Nayib Bukele, as they show that not only the hardcore bitcoiners are heavily accumulating in these times, but also El Salvador as a nation and MicroStrategy as a company are not backing down.
Even Nayib Bukele was kind enough to display their bitcoin purchases, oh and for everyone thinking it is irresponsible from their side to use government funds do to so, just remember that El Salvador was the most visited LatinAmerican country in 2021 and made north of $500 million from tourism as they implemented the Bitcoin Standard.
Maybe there is an incentive for countries to adopt bitcoin, besides their financial sovereignty.
THE NEWS!
1. Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, announced the company has purchased an additional 480 bitcoin for $10 million, with an average cost of $20,817 per bitcoin.
2. Nayib Bukele announced that El Salvador bought 80 bitcoin at $19,000 each.
4. Indira Kempis, senator of the Mexican Congress, has proposed a bill that would make bitcoin legal tender in Mexico. The bill bases its action on the hardships that Mexican citizens are facing went trying to access financial products and education.
3. Bitcoin Magazine is bringing its signature Bitcoin conference event to Europe. The Bitcoin Amsterdam event will be held from October 12-14 at the iconic Westergas venue in Amsterdam.
4. Mercury Wallet, a Layer 2 scaling solution for Bitcoin, plans to integrate with the Lightning Network and blind its server.
5. The Swiss luxury watchmaker Breitling, now officially accepts bitcoin payments.
The luxury market has shown a great interest in getting closer to the bitcoin world. In the last few weeks, the luxury e-commerce Farfetch, fashion brands Gucci and Balenciaga and watchmakers TAG Heuer and Hublot have announced bitcoin as a payment option.
6. Luxor Technologies' new marketplace allows those looking to mine bitcoin to find hosting facilities and ASICs by delivering industry knowledge about each provider.
7. Users of Bitcoin Reserve can now purchase Blockstream’s Liquid Bitcoin (L-BTC) which enables the use of the Liquid Network, a layer two app for Bitcoin.
8. Over 53 million Brazilian customers can now buy bitcoin through the country’s largest digital bank, Warren Buffett-backed Nubank.
9. OpenNode partners with Lemon Cash to enable Lightning-fast bitcoin payments and payouts for more than 1 million customers.
10. 21Shares released a new bitcoin ETP with the lowest cost basis in the world as its first of many products being designed for a bear market.
11. The Jacobi Bitcoin ETF will be the first spot bitcoin ETF offered on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange for institutional European investors.
12. Spiral gives to Ruben Somsen their latest grant to work on Spacechains.
13. Samsung is reportedly trialing the production of 3nm foundry processing for chips enabling bitcoin miners to operate faster and with less power consumption.
14. Intel, is reportedly now shipping their new Bitcoin Mining ASIC to their customers.
15. Two public schools in El Salvador are offering a vocational course that teaches Bitcoin as a skills-based diploma and counts towards graduation
16. It is now possible to use a Lightning Wallet to create login accounts.
FUNDAMENTALS
Despite the price not looking on the bullish side, and all of the latest horrible news in the crypto-lending space (Oh which by the way, I would have assumed that saying "NOT YOUR KEYS NOT YOUR COINS”), we can see that not only the development goes on, but the small players like you and me, continue diligently accumulating sats for the long term. Every other day we see a new all time high on addresses having just above 0.01 bitcoin, or about $190.
This is not a race, but a marathon.
As a summary note..
ADOPTION IN PAYMENT
The adoption on Lightning has never been more optimistic than nowadays. Some weeks ago uncle Bam talked about the Bolt card, CoinCorners latest amazing product, as it was newly released and showcased as a proof of concept.
And the results have been more than outstanding, with businesses rapidly implementing it, and people all over showcasing how they happily pay with bitcoin (lightning) without the need of a counter party.
Here is England’s Avon Valley Wildlife Park which recently announced to accept bitcoin payments.
But do one needs to only have CoinCorner’s as a payment providor? Well apparently not, and here David Coen shows us a beta implementation from Breez Tech, where they use LNURL withdrawPOS (point of sale).
So is the future still looking grim? Because I am feeling kind of excited!
Ok a last one!
Have a great weekend niblings.
Stay humble & stack sats.
Supported by:
How to buy bitcoin? (With Relai through Revolut)
If you are in Europe, I made a pretty simple guide with 3 steps, which avoids you having to set up an account on an exchange, give them all of your personal information, plus custody of your funds.
Did you find value on this? You want to contribute to Uncle Bam?
Then feel free to donate, a cup of coffee would be highly appreciated.
But more importantly, share this with your friends and family..
Lightning Address:
cherryskate01@walletofsatoshi.com