WTFBitcoin Week 44,2022
Bitcoin is becoming widely adopted.
TLDR: South African retail stores accept bitcoin, Bitcoin record high on transfer volume. Interest in Bitcoin from CashApp users continues, Zerofee bitcoin trading adopted by Fidelity & More..
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 bitcoin has recovered ground by pushing prices over $21,000. There is naturally some excitement in the space, but many people still weary as the FOMC meeting resulted in raising rates by 0.75%, with an expectation of continue the tightening. Due to the “dovish” stance of the Federal Reserve, many people are expecting the bitcoin price to hit new lows.
Now I am not a magic ball, but to me it seems unlikely (to me) to expect prices comparable to 2017, while the network effect has been playing its role, and bitcoin’s value transferred is orders of magnitude higher for the last two years, compared to 2017- 2020.
Just remember, there are multiple currencies in the world, but only ONE has removed the need for trust. Only ONE has afforded people the option to opt in voluntarily to a form of money that can’t be printed & its controlled by NO ONE.
In a world where dollars are being printed out of thin air and with zero marginal cost, all fundamental value of bitcoin could be derived from the fact that there will only ever be 21 million.
And I guess it shows if we follow MicroStrategy’s steps, the only public company who decided to completely adopt a bitcoin standard.
Now, subscribe, share and lets get to the news!
THE NEWS!
1. Synonym has released the Bitkit Wallet, a mobile wallet for both Apple and Android operating systems. The wallet includes many innovative features such as: social profiles, dynamic payable contacts, interoperable data feeds and passwordless web accounts.
2. Square released results sharing revenue of $1.76 billion of bitcoin sales for its third quarter. Essentially plebs have been stacking through this bear market.
3. Pick n Pay, one of South Africa's largest retailers, has started rolling out Bitcoin payments in its stores. A pilot with 10 locations five months ago, turned into a total of 39 stores, with the intention to enable the payment option in all of its ~2,000 stores.
4. Mercado Pago, subsidiary of Ecommerce giant Mercado Libre, has officially launched Bitcoin trading in Mexico 🇲🇽!
5. UnionBank, one of the largest universal banks in the Philippines, has launched bitcoin trading.
6. “Lebanon and banks force huge haircuts on dollar withdrawals. To make ends meet in a financial system that no longer makes sense, some Lebanese are mining or storing wealth using Bitcoin.” per CNBC
7. The Bitcoin Magazine inaugurated the Bitcoin Magazine Art Gallery will serve as the Bitcoin world’s preeminent exhibition space for established and emerging artists.
8. Fidelity Investments, the financial services behemoth, has opened access to a waiting list for its bitcoin trading offering for users to express interest in their upcoming product. This new product would allow their clients to buy and sell bitcoin with no fees, competing with popular zero-fee trading campaign driven by competitors such as Binance.
9. Apollo, asset management giant with $515 billion in AUM, has launched a Bitcoin and crypto custody service for its clients.
10. MoneyGram now allows US users to buy bitcoin on its mobile app.
11. CleanSpark saw record bitcoin production in October with 532 bitcoin produced, representing nearly 20% increase from its September production.
12. Geroge and Devonshire, a pub in the London area, has started to accept bitcoin through CoinCorner PoS.
13. Gary Gensler, chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, wishes a happy 14th birthday to Satoshi’s white paper.
14. Lightning Coffee, is a 100% Colombian coffee. This new venture from @josebitcoiner is focused on providing good quality coffee while spreading bitcoin’s gospel. Check them out!
15. Bitcoiners are finding ways to reduce their electricity costs by warming their homes using bitcoin miners!
16. And guess where you could buy a bitcoin miner now? Yep.. Walmart.
FUNDAMENTALS
Middle East has discovered Bitcoin & cryptocurrencies. It seems they love it. As its growth in the last year is palpable.
78% of the total bitcoin supply has not moved in over 6 months, making a new all-time high.
Bitcoin has settled over $103 trillion dollars. Quite impressive, for a peer to peer network.
As a summary note..
When we say instant settlement, many people would compare it to their current bank accounts allowing to transfer to their friends and families in the same country, but this money hasn’t necessarily settled, it becomes debts and balances for the banks interoperating on our behalf, the so called trusted third parties.
Bitcoin changes this, and offers an opportunity of instant settlement as the market liquidity allowing people to buy and sell its growing bigger and bigger.
In this video, Mary receives $20 instantly from Nigeria to Michael in San Francisco by using the Bitcoin’s lightning network as settlement rails. Mary created an bitcoin invoice, where Michael was able to pay it from his CashApp US. dollar account, simply as it operates with the bitcoin network. Just like magic!
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
That annual transfer value chart tho