2022W37 - WTF happened in Bitcoin this week?
Bitcoin development and adoption seems unstoppable
TLDR: Adoption keeps growing, Development is accelerating, Partnerships allow more people to interact with the Bitcoin network. Miners stopped their sell-off. Hash Rate hits ATH. Bitcoin held over a year hits ATH.
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 there was the release of Chainalysis’ 2022 Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index. While we see numbers on how other places have adopted bitcoin, it is hard to really see and imagine how this is playing in real life. Over the last years we have seen the development of Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador, attracting many bitcoiners from all over the world, to surf and experience the bitcoin economy.
Clearly the model became successful and since it also attracted many tourist to the area, other communities started to take notice. This week I stumble upon Bitcoin Island Philippines.
Bitcoin Island Philippines is located in Boracay Island. They use a local developed app Pouch for merchants to be able and accept lightning but have the optionality to choose between receiving Peso, the local currency, or bitcoin.
With a crew of 7 bitcoiners, the 4 month old project has already onboarded over 100 businesses, from big hotels to small shops and even tour companies.
👉🏼(See thread to learn more about it).
Money is a network effect, the more accepted it becomes, the more value it will have, specially if its scarce. As the network grows, our freedom does too, now we have more places where we could pay in a self sovereign way, using bitcoin.
THE NEWS!
1. Public miner holdings in August are slightly up after a continuous streak of 3 months of selling.
2. Nigeria ranks #1 in "bitcoin mining" searches around the world.
3. ZEBEDEE partners with Slice and launch a browser extension. The browser extension, once linked to a ZEBEDEE account, pays users for watching advertisements in redeemable points which can be exchanged for bitcoin.
4. BigCommerce launches bitcoin payments for 60,000 merchants. The company partnered with BitPay and CoinPayments creating one-click integrations for merchants to accept bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments.
5. OpenNode is testing payments with the Central Bank Of Bahrain. Using the central bank’s fintech digital sandbox to trial bitcoin payment solutions, OpenNode will bring BTC payments to the island kingdom for the first time.
6. River Financial, purchases 3,000 more miners for their hosting provider service. The miners will be mostly positioned at a wind farm in West Texas and thousands more miners are scheduled to deploy throughout 2022.
7. Fidelity, the pro-bitcoin financial giant is reportedly considering allowing its over 34 million individual investors to buy bitcoin through its online brokerage.
Fidelity, Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab, are launching a bitcoin and crypto exchange to be settled on-chain with the liquidity backing of legacy finance.
8. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis has released its 2022 Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index
Vietnam is the ranked as the #1 in crypto/bitcoin adoption.
Despite last year's ban, China has ranked among the top 10 in world adoption.
As a reference, United States is on 4th place.
9. Bitcoin and crypto accepted at +100 supermarkets by retailer Varus.
10. In partnership with Binance, the luxury resort Palazzo Versace Dubai now accepts bitcoin for goods and services on-site and plans to launch online payments in the near future.
11. @SatoshisPlaceUK opened this Friday in Bury, being the first bar in the region to accept Bitcoin as payment.
FUNDAMENTALS
Bitcoin hash rate hits a new all time high (ATH) with more than 335 EH/s.
Bitcoin being held over a year hits a new ATH. With 65.85% of the bitcoin supply remaining unmoved in at least a year, despite experiencing wild swings up to $69,000 and lows around $17,500.
Lightning Capacity has increased to over 4,779 BTC, a new ATH.
As a summary note..
They say bear markets are for building. And it seems that it is certainly right. It is hard to keep track of all developments going on in the space. The community has clearly grew in size compared to previous years, with even big companies entering the space through investment rounds. This week a really interesting project was born.
Cashu - a Chaumian Ecash wallet and mint with early Lightning support was released.
While it is an improvement on privacy, there is clear trade-offs as one doesn’t hold their own keys, and naturally the fact that is a beta version. But the potential lies on having a way to hold “pocket money” and use it in an anonymous way.
Who knows, maybe this sparks some future innovation.
Have a great weekend niblings.
Stay humble & stack sats.
Want to learn how to buy bitcoin?
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.
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Lightning Address: rustybeam47@walletofsatoshi.com