Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #198 of Bitcoin Breakdown, where we’re bringing you your end-of-week Bitcoin Digest featuring all the need-to-know Quick Bits snippets and Quick Media.

But first, today’s Top Stories:

• 🇷🇺 Russia Uses $BTC.X ( ▲ 2.9% ) To Trade Oil w/ China & India

• 🙄 Democrat Tries To Stop Bitcoin Strategic Reserve

• 🇺🇸 White House Wants 'As Much Bitcoin As Possible'

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Mar 15, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🇷🇺 Russia Uses BTC To Trade Oil w/ China & India

Reuters reports that Russia has been sidestepping international sanctions by using Bitcoin and USDT for oil trades with China and India. Innovative intermediaries convert local currencies to BTC, streamlining transactions while boosting TX speed. Russian businesses have been busy harnessing the convenience of BTC as an essential tool, confirming that even under sanctions, Bitcoin remains pivotal for maintaining trade flows. Atlas21

🙄 Democrat Tries To Stop Bitcoin Strategic Reserve

Democrat Representative Gerald Connolly is urging Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to stop President Trump's Bitcoin reserve plans, citing conflicts of interest and 'no discernible benefits' for US citizens, in his opinion. He criticizes the plan as a 'taxpayer-backed hedge for Bitcoin speculators’, suggesting it would only enrich Trump and his donors. Furthermore, Connolly highlights the administration's failure to consult Congress, calling out the plan for allocating specific cryptocurrencies being a potential waste of funds. Yes, these people actually exist. Cointelegraph

🇺🇸 White House Wants 'As Much Bitcoin As Possible'

Bo Hines, executive director of the Presidential Working Group on Digital Assets, apparently told participants to a closed-door roundtable that the White House is intent on acquiring as much bitcoin as it can. The acquisitions will be 'budget neutral' and are supported by pro-Bitcoin senators like Cynthia Lummis, who also proposed legislation for a large Bitcoin purchase potentially by repricing Federal Reserve gold reserves that have appreciated by approximately 6,800% since 1971 to free up revenue. Decrypt

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QUICK BITS

• Trump family reportedly discussed acquiring a stake in Binance US via their venture World Liberty Financial, amid the possibility of a presidential pardon for founder CZ.

• Six members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet disclosed Bitcoin holdings worth millions of dollars in their January financial disclosures.

• European Central Bank survey reveals minimal interest in digital euro adoption among Europeans, who favor existing payment methods and question a CBDC’s added value.

• ECB mass banking system outage fuels further doubts about its readiness to launch a digital euro.

• El Salvador and Paraguay sign a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on Bitcoin and crypto regulations.

• ARENA, El Salvador's largest opposition party, criticizes President Bukele for defying the IMF deal and warns of economic instability due to continued BTC purchases.

• Researchers raise concerns about Bitfinex possibly controlling El Salvador's BTC, questioning the transparency and ownership of the nation's stated 6,114 BTC reserves.

• IATSE Local 728 becomes the first US private-sector trade union to invest in Bitcoin.

• Grayscale reports that nearly 40% of US high-net-worth individuals want to buy Bitcoin.

• Coinbase registers with India's Financial Intelligence Unit to offer Bitcoin and crypto trading services in the country.

• South Korea's Financial Services Commission develops a two-phase Bitcoin and crypto regulation framework to enable institutional investors enter the market

• Ledger's open-source research team discovers a vulnerability in Trezor's Safe 3 and 5 devices which could potentially expose the devices to advanced security attacks.

• Delaware judge rules that a Bitcoin mining host can’t block tenant access to its rigs, ordering Mawson Hosting to restore digital and physical access to Consensus Colocation's 21,000 rigs amid a payment dispute.

• Deutsche Bank, the largest German bank by total assets, calls Bitcoin a hard reserve asset distinct from altcoins and says that holding it might be a good option for diversifying a portfolio.

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QUICK MEDIA

• Vivek Ramaswamy, Ohio candidate for Governor, at the Bitcoin for America Summit discusses Bitcoin's role as the new standard for capital allocation, arguing it should serve as the hurdle rate for high-risk projects due to its fixed supply (Mar 12 | 26:24 min watch). 

• Presidio Bitcoin, a San Francisco-based co-working space for Bitcoin, hosts Jack Dorsey of Block, David Marcus of Lightspark, Alex Glastein of HRF and Steve Lee of Spiral for a panel discussion on the transformative power of open-source innovation in Bitcoin (Mar 11 | 57:49 min watch). 

• Andrew Hohns, founder and CEO of Newmarket Capital, at the Bitcoin for America Summit proposes integrating Bitcoin into US Treasury bonds through 'BitBonds,' offering lower interest rates, tax-free family savings, and a potential path to debt reduction in a presentation (Mar 12 | 9:37 min watch). 

• Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike, argues in a presentation at the Bitcoin for America Summit that the proposed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and BITCOIN Act represent the most significant positive economic shift in the US in 100 years, aligning with the country's founding principles of private property, sound money, and free markets (Mar 14 | 10:07 min watch). 

• Michael Saylor of Strategy highlights in his presentation at the Bitcoin for America Summit how a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is crucial for US 'digital supremacy', portraying Bitcoin as digital property and energy, essential for a $100T AI-driven economy and a multi-trillion dollar opportunity for corporations and the nation (Mar 13 | 31:05 min watch). 

• Lawrence Lepard, author of 'The Big Print', discusses on Robert Breedlove's podcast how Bitcoin's value, driven by Metcalfe's Law and network effects, surpasses traditional investment models, advocating for BTC as a superior, manipulation-resistant asset akin to the invention of zero (Mar 12 | 8:27 min watch). 

• Matthew Kratter of Bitcoin University explores the implications of telepathy on Bitcoin security, revealing how non-verbal autistic children's alleged abilities could compromise seed phrases and why multisig wallets are the solution (Mar 13 | 12:25 min watch). 

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