Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #253 of the Bitcoin Breakdown daily newsletter, where we’re rounding up the most talked-about developments in the Bitcoin-only space from the past weekend with our Quick Bits and Quick Media sections.

But first, today’s Top Stories:

• 🏦 Panama City Mayor Hints at $BTC.X ( ▼ 0.83% ) Reserve

• 🧩 Bits Over Sats: Bitcoin Base Unit Debate Heats Up

• 🛡️ 'Bitcoin Standard' Author Declares War on Bitcoin Spam

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May 19, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🏦 Panama City Mayor Hints at Bitcoin Reserve

Panama City Mayor Mayer Mizrachi dropped a tantalizing hint about a potential city-level Bitcoin reserve after meeting El Salvador’s Bitcoin OGs, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert. His cryptic post on social media has Bitcoiners buzzing, especially with Panama already greenlighting Bitcoin and crypto for public payments like taxes and fees. While details remain scarce, discussions also covered Bitcoin mining with renewable energy and financial literacy programs. Cointelegraph

🧩 Bits Over Sats: Bitcoin Base Unit Debate Heats Up

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block Inc., has added to the chorus of advocates for a change in Bitcoin’s base unit from satoshis to bits, arguing that sats supposedly confuse newcomers to the Bitcoin network. The proposal by Bitcoin developer John Carvalho aims to split Bitcoin’s 21 million supply into 21 quadrillion units for simplicity, but critics like Swan Bitcoin’s CEO Cory Klippsten insist sats are as intuitive as cents in a dollar. Cointelegraph

🛡️ 'Bitcoin Standard' Author Declares War on Bitcoin Spam

Saifedean Ammous, author of 'The Bitcoin Standard', is championing the fight against Bitcoin spam, offering to 'throw in a few sats' for a developer to make it more costly. He stresses it's about protecting Bitcoin's integrity as sound money, not about censorship. As inscriptions threaten network bloat, Ammous supports stronger filtering to keep Bitcoin focused on its monetary purpose, rather than storing JPEGs. Cointelegraph

POLL #253

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

QUICK BITS

• Russian Central Bank reports Bitcoin as top investment with 38% returns in 2024, outpacing gold and stocks.

• Méliuz, a publicly listed company in Brazil, invests $28.4M in bitcoin, becoming Brazil's first Bitcoin treasury firm.

• AsiaStrategy, formerly luxury watchmaker Top Win, sees stock surge over 60% after adopting Bitcoin treasury strategy in partnership with Sora Ventures.

• Al Abraaj Restaurants Group, a Bahrain-based chain, becomes the first Middle East firm to hold bitcoin in its treasury.

• Btrust awards $1M in Developer Education & Event Grants to 10 Bitcoin open-source development initiatives across Africa, Latin America, and India.

• Metaplanet boosts its bitcoin holdings to 7,800 BTC with a purchase of 1,004 BTC worth $104M.

• Neutron, a Lightning company based in Canada, and Cobo, a Bitcoin and crypto custodian, partner to enable fast, low-cost BTC settlements across Asia with Lightning Network integration.

• Basel Medical Group Ltd., a Singapore healthcare provider, begins a $1B BTC acquisition.

• Federal prosecutors charge 12 individuals in $263M crypto scheme targeting an early Genesis investor in a global racketeering operation.

• Foreign workers in South Korea increasingly demand wages in Bitcoin and crypto rather than the South Korean Won.

• Alabama man receives a 14-month sentence for hacking the SEC's 𝕏 account and posting fake bitcoin ETF approval news.

• Regulatory filings reveal high-profile asset managers cutting stakes in spot bitcoin ETFs amid a 12% price drop in Q1 2025.

QUICK MEDIA

• Isabella Santos of BTC Isla advocates saving 100% in BTC, citing its superior performance, protection against fiat currency devaluation, true ownership, fixed supply, and role as a hedge against a broken financial system (May 16 | 6:48 min watch).

• Matthew Kratter of Bitcoin University highlights how Steak 'n Shake’s nationwide acceptance of BTC payments demonstrates Bitcoin’s growing utility for daily transactions while urging viewers to support Bitcoin-friendly merchants and push for US policy changes that remove capital gains taxes on micro-spending (May 17 | 9:52 min watch).

• Lawrence Lepard, author of 'The Big Print', says that being a 'wholecoiner', a person who owns 1 full BTC, is going to be an enormous deal in a few years (May 17 | 1:32 min watch). 

• Michael Saylor, in an appearance on Al Arabiya English, being interviewed by Hadley Gamble, says Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait sovereign wealth funds should put 100% allocation into Bitcoin (May 17 | 1:36 min watch).

• Tom Lee, co-founder and research head of Fundstrat Capital, in a panel discussion at the Consensus 2025 conference, speaks about Bitcoin’s Swiss army knife versatility as both risk-on and network-value safe haven, projecting it to match gold’s network value (May 16 | 0:35 min watch). 

• Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike, in an appearance on Natalie Brunell's Coin Stories podcast, explains how we are shifting towards a world where the US Dollar will be backed by Bitcoin (May 15 | 1:31 min watch).

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