Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #286 of the daily Bitcoin Breakdown, where we have some excellent Opinion & Analysis pieces and Tools & Projects for you today!

But first, today’s Top Stories:

• 🏦 Fed Chief Powell Says Bitcoin Has Gone Mainstream

• ⛏️ Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Has Steepest Drop in Years

• 📊 MicroStrategy Eyes S&P 500 Glory Ride on Bitcoin Wings

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Jun 26, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🏦 Fed Chief Powell Says Bitcoin Has Gone Mainstream

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell declared that Bitcoin has matured into a mainstream asset, signaling a major shift from the Biden era crackdown. Powell told senators the Fed is reassessing harsh 2023 policies that discouraged banks from Bitcoin and crypto activities. He emphasized banks should freely choose their customers and business models as long as they manage risks appropriately, marking a clear pivot toward Bitcoin friendly regulation. Crypto Briefing

⛏️ Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Has Steepest Drop in Years

Bitcoin’s hashrate experienced its most dramatic plunge in three years, dropping over 15% since mid-June. While some fingers pointed at geopolitical drama and power outages in Iran, the data suggests the decline was already underway. The more likely culprits are soaring electricity prices and a major US heatwave, which reduces mining efficiency and profitability, forcing some miners to power down temporarily. This resilience shows the Bitcoin network adapting to real-world conditions, a feature not a bug. Cointelegraph

📊 MicroStrategy Eyes S&P 500 Glory Ride on Bitcoin Wings

(Micro)Strategy has a 91% chance of joining the S&P 500 if Bitcoin stays above $95,240 through June’s end, acorrding to financial analyst Jeff Walton. New accounting rules let the company count unrealized Bitcoin gains as earnings, boosting its profile with 592,345 BTC worth over $63.5B. S&P inclusion would make (Micro)Strategy a Bitcoin proxy for traditional investors, potentially triggering massive institutional buying as index funds snap up shares. Cointelegraph

POLL #285

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

OPINION & ANALYSIS

• Nick Neuman, Co Founder and CEO of Casa, argues that wrench attacks targeting bitcoin holders will persist until distributed key security systems achieve widespread adoption, creating a 'herd immunity' effect that makes physical coercion attacks unprofitable by ensuring victims cannot access their bitcoin even under duress (Jun 25 | 4 min read).

• Kurt Johnson of The Sydney Morning Herald reviews former WIRED writer Benjamin Wallace's new book chronicling his 15 year quest to unmask Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's mysterious creator (Jun 25 | 4 min read).

• Abhinav Tewari, writing for Cointelegraph, explores why risk averse investors increasingly choose Bitcoin over sovereign bonds, citing BTC's 375.5% three year outperformance versus traditional assets, $132.5B in spot ETF inflows, and superior risk adjusted returns as institutional adoption accelerates amid monetary policy uncertainty (Jun 25 | 8 min read).

• Erik, Product Designer at Hoseki, outlines three critical challenges facing Cashu wallet applications (mint discoverability, rug protection, and payment complexity) while proposing solutions including improved mint discovery interfaces, enhanced risk mitigation tools, and streamlined Multinut Payments to make ecash more accessible (Jun 25 | 3 min read).

• Scoresby, a pseudonymous Bitcoiner, argues that recent conflicts between different Bitcoin node operators over transaction filtering policies actually strengthen the network by battle testing its peer to peer infrastructure against potential state attacks (Jun 24 | 4 min read).

• Btrust Builders argues that batch verification of Schnorr signatures can significantly improve Bitcoin Core's block validation performance by up to 16% for fully Schnorr signed blocks, making node operations more efficient as Taproot adoption increases (Jun 23 | 11 min read).

• Antoine Poinsot and Greg Sanders argue that CTV+CSFS soft fork capabilities for committing to transaction spending and verifying BIP340 signatures represent the optimal next step for Bitcoin scaling, offering proven benefits over alternatives like doing nothing, zero knowledge rollups, or more complex scripting redesigns (Jun 23 | 5 min read).

• Paul Rosenberg, author of 'A Lodging Of Wayfaring Men', argues that Bitcoiners succeed where libertarians fail because they take action rather than just theorizing, willingly suffer consequences for their beliefs, and view Bitcoin as a transformative gateway to decentralized living that's worth fighting for (Jun 21 | 3 min read).

• L0la L33tz of The Rage also argues that Israel's bombing of banks and cyber attacks on financial infrastructure like Iran's Sepah Bank and Nobitex exchange represents a dangerous normalization of targeting civilian financial systems under the guise of combating terrorist financing (Jun 21 | 7 min read).

• ICYMI: Shahriar Kia, in a report for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, exposes how IRGC controlled Bitcoin mining operations exploit Iran's subsidized electricity grid, consuming gigawatts of power while ordinary citizens endure devastating blackouts costing the economy over $25B annually (May 26 | 14 min read).

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TOOLS & PROJECTS

• New on Geyser: HarmonyCode Empowerment Initiative is a 9 month education program in Nigeria, teaching African youth Bitcoin literacy, music production, AI, software development, and cybersecurity to build digital sovereignty and future ready creators.

• New on Geyser: LightningPOS democratizes Bitcoin payments for merchants by enabling ultra-fast transactions in under nine seconds with zero fees for businesses of all sizes.

• Lightning Labs releases Taproot Assets v0.6, enabling Bitcoin's evolution into a multi asset decentralized foreign exchange network with enhanced Lightning flows, larger transactions, and improved developer tools for stablecoin integration.

• Bringin, a financial platform bridging Bitcoin and traditional banking, launches world's first virtual IBAN supporting Lightning addresses for instant bitcoin to euro conversion and seamless spending.

• Solo Satoshi launches a comprehensive mining calculator suite featuring five precision tools including solo mining odds, pool reward payouts, electricity cost forecasting, real time sats to USD conversion, and electrical formula toolkit for home miners.

• Zone21 is a Bitcoin lending risk assessment platform to help borrowers evaluate hidden dangers in BTC backed loans through a comprehensive 13 factor scoring model.

• Emergenseed is a multi asset mnemonic derivation design for temporary high risk environments where users face property inspection or seizure risks, using controlled lower entropy input and expensive key derivation functions.

• Smaug is a Core Lightning Network plugin that tracks external on chain wallet movements for improved bitcoin accounting.

• Freepilot by Alby enables developers to deploy AI agents that tackle multiple Github issues simultaneously, paying them through the Lightning Network for tasks.

• DuckDuckGo, a privacy focused browser, expands its built in Scam Blocker protection to include fake e commerce sites, cryptocurrency exchanges, and scareware threats, offering anonymous security without tracking user data.

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