2022W5 - WTF happened in Bitcoin this week?
Bitcoin is unseizable
TLDR: MicroStrategy buys the dip, Russia becoming bitcoin friendly, a push for exchanges to prove their reserves, Businesses and Fraternities adopting bitcoin standard, Canadian Freedom Convoy gets donations on Bitcoin.
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 has been incredible, both in price action, but more importantly adoption terms. One of the biggest properties of bitcoin that people often take for granted is its unseizeability. Combined with the monetary network being permissionless, there is a great value added for every user by being able to have freedom in the economic realm.
Let’s take as an example the Freedom Convoy in Canada. Truckers from the entire country are protesting as they are upset with the new measures that would require unvaccinated Canadian truckers crossing the two nations to quarantine once they’ve return home.
They moved their trucks to Ottawa in order to attempt being heard and get a response from the Canadian authorities. Without going into whether this is a good or bad method of protest, there is clearly many people supporting the movement either by being there, or by displaying their economical support for the cause, as people donated about $7.9 million usd, only to be FROZEN BY GOFUNDME.
This is an example of censorship and seizeability, and a showcase the weaknesses of centralized services, as they will ultimately respond to the states demands from fear of later repercussions on their business to operate. Im not saying this is what it is exactly happening, it could also be that GoFundMe doesn’t approve the cause and are imposing their personal interests, which in my opinion would be even worse.
Thankfully, we have a better way of doing things now. If money is speech, we then are only free until we are able to separate money and state, and bitcoin is the only decentralized monetary network that could allow us that and at the moment is showcasing how people can get together and support a cause without the need of centralized services as one could donate to the Freedom Convoy with bitcoin or lightning.
So far there has been more than 1.5 bitcoin given by bitcoiners all around the world, to support the fight for freedom. Feel free to support the cause. But lets get to the news!
THE NEWS!
1. MicroStrategy added 660 bitcoin to its treasury holdings for an approximate value of $25 million in cash at an average price of ~$37,865 per bitcoin. MicroStrategy now "HODLs" ~125,051 bitcoins valued at ~$3.78 billion, acquired at an average price of ~30,200 per bitcoin.
2. Everbowl, California- based craft superfood chain, will now run its business operations off the Bitcoin Standard and is converting cash reserves to Bitcoin.
“We've concluded that running the business exclusively on cash isn't the most advantageous, nor the safest, method of running a business in 2022 and beyond” - CEO of EverBowl
3. Dono.io was launched, a new way of enabling feeless bitcoin donations by using Strike’s API.
4. Lebron James to launch bitcoin and crypto education program.
5. Russia prepares roadmap for bitcoin and crypto regulation.
6. The Ministry of Finance, in Russia, suggested letting banks sell bitcoin while the Chamber of Commerce thinks mining should become an established business.
7. Kraken, one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges, now allows customers to independently verify that the bitcoin funds they hold on their exchange are backed by actual assets with its new feature Proof of Reserves.
8. Sigma Alpha, a fraternity at Lipscom University, announced to put large percentage of their cash reserves into bitcoin and supercharged their treasury by adopting bitcoin, this last summer.
9. NYDIG launched Bitcoin Savings Plan, where companies can adopt to offer their employees the ability to get paid in bitcoin.
“An NYDIG Bitcoin Savings Plan is an easy-to-adopt benefit that can help employers stand out from the pack while providing their employees with a critical tool for protecting their financial futures.” - Patrick (Never) Sells, CIO of NYDIG
10. Bitcoin Education Center launches in El Salvador by Paxful. The initative, called La Casa Del Bitcoin, has as an objective to propel bitcoin adoption with free knowledge.
11. Ricardo Salinas Pliego, Mexican billionaire, says bitcoin is a better option than fiat money because it brings additional qualities.
“It is unseizable and can be transferred instantly worldwide”- Ricardo Salinas
12. Riot Blockchain produced 458 bitcoin in January 2022.
13. $3B UNIFY Financial Credit Union will offer Bitcoin to its 265,000 members through NYDIG.
$7.3B Idaho Central Credit Union will offer Bitcoin to its members through NYDIG.
FUNDAMENTALS
As the price starts to get some action but still sits far away from its all time high, the network keeps growing stronger. The 14 day mean hash rate has recovered and keeps pushing towards higher limits, meaning the miner migration from China is not only complete, but many more rigs are entering the game. With Mining companies going public, and home miners becoming more innovative by the day, the network has never looked healthier.
As a summary note..
As adoption grows further, sometimes it is hard to understand how our peers can’t see the value proposition of bitcoin as we see it. If you are like uncle Bam living in a “developed” world, it is often harder to see the necessity of bitcoin, as “everything works just fine”.. until it doesn’t.
With the unprecedented inflation, bitcoin is not only becoming attractive for institutions and wealthy individuals, the growth is even bigger in places where the local currencies are constantly losing value, and they have capital controls preventing them from fleeing the currency towards Dollar or Euro.
Have a great weekend niblings.
Stay humble & stack sats.
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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.
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