Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #304 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:

• 🕵️ US Govt Bitcoin Sales May Be Flying Under the Radar

• 🤝 El Salvador and Pakistan Team Up for Bitcoin Brotherhood

• 🌪️ Government Wants to Hide Tornado Cash Privacy Benefits from Jury

TOGETHER WITH BITCOIN SOVEREIGNS

Attain Self-Sovereignty with the Bitcoin Sovereigns Private Community

Take control of your future with Bitcoin Sovereigns—a Bitcoin-only private community dedicated to achieving personal sovereignty through Bitcoin.

🔥 Why Join?

• Structured Roadmap: Tailored guidance for beginners and experts alike.

• Exclusive Content: Learn about Bitcoin basics, running your own node, OPSEC essentials, self-hosting, and flag theory.

• Supportive Community: Accountability and support every step of the way.

🌟 Our Core Values:

• Bitcoin-Only (No second best!)

• Right to Pseudonymity

• Low Time Preference

• Personal Growth

• Community Support

Learn, share, and spur hyperbitcoinization. Reach your full potential with us!

Jul 17, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🕵️ US Govt Bitcoin Sales May Be Flying Under the Radar

A Freedom of Information Act request by The Rage reveals the US Marshals Service holds just 28,988 BTC worth $3.4B, far below the estimated 198,012 BTC previously thought. This shocking discovery prompted Senator Cynthia Lummis to call it a 'strategic blunder,' claiming the US sold off over 80% of its Bitcoin reserves. Bitcoin trackers, such as Sani of Timechain Index further question whether US government holdings have been sold without on-chain movement, as custodians like Coinbase could facilitate swaps that leave no blockchain footprint - a theory espoused by Trump’s own ‘Bitcoin adviser,’ David Bailey. The Block

🤝 El Salvador and Pakistan Team Up for Bitcoin Brotherhood

President Nayib Bukele hosted Pakistan's ‘Minister of Crypto’ Bilal Bin Saqib to discuss Bitcoin mining, strategic reserves, and education initiatives. They signed a Letter of Intent for collaboration on Bitcoin and crypto between their nations. The partnership focuses on public sector adoption and blockchain-driven financial inclusion as Pakistan seeks to establish itself as a digital asset leader. Despite International Monetary Fund concerns blocking Pakistan's Bitcoin mining plans, the country continues pursuing Bitcoin-related initiatives. Cointelegraph

🌪️ Government Wants to Hide Tornado Cash Privacy Benefits from Jury

The prosecution is scrambling to prevent Roman Storm's defense from explaining why people need financial privacy, including protection from crypto-related kidnappings and extortion. After the defense asked jurors how they'd feel having their bank accounts published online, the government filed a motion to block testimony about legitimate privacy uses. They're particularly worried about expert witness Matthew Green discussing the rising wave of Bitcoin holder attacks that privacy tools help prevent. The Rage

POLL #304

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

OPINION & ANALYSIS

• Zach Whiting, public policy manager at Riot Platforms, argues Congress must reform bitcoin taxation to treat it like other commodities, eliminating the IRS's unfair 'double taxation' of miners and burdensome capital gains reporting requirements for everyday bitcoin transactions (Jul 16 | 3 min read).

• GHOST, creator of the Untraceable Digital Dissident project, warns that cold storage alone cannot protect bitcoiners from physical threats, arguing that operational security practices are essential to prevent criminals from targeting Bitcoin holders through doxxing and wrench attacks (Jul 16 | 2 min read).

• Cristaiji, a pseudonymous Stacker News user, analyzes Yanis Varoufakis's critique of Bitcoin to explore why socialists oppose it, arguing that Bitcoin's decentralized nature threatens state control over monetary policy that socialist ideologies require (Jul 15 | 6 min read).

• Janusz, a Bitcoin privacy advocate, writing for Bitcoin++ Insider, explains how Shielded CSV and zkCoins protocols enable near-perfect privacy for bitcoin payments through zero-knowledge proofs and client-side validation, requiring only 64 bytes of blockchain data per transaction compared to bitcoin's 600-byte average (Jul 16 | 12 min read).

• Leon Wankum, Bitcoiner and real estate expert, examines how Metaplanet transformed from a failing Japanese hotel chain into Asia's leading Bitcoin treasury company, following (Micro)Strategy's playbook to achieve over 2,075% returns in 2024 (Jul 16 | 48 min read).

• Kepford of the Drupal newsletter argues that quantum computing poses no threat to Bitcoin after reviewing cryptographer Peter Gutmann's paper exposing quantum factorization 'breakthroughs' as carefully constructed sleight-of-hand tricks that can be replicated by simple devices (Jul 16 | 8 min read).

• George Selgin, an Austrian economist cited by Hal Finney in 2010 as an expert on competitive free banking theory, in an interview with CCN, argues that Bitcoin-backed free banking could provide a scalable monetary framework superior to Lightning Network by allowing banks to issue interest-bearing digital IOUs backed by BTC reserves (Jul 15 | 7 min read).

• Blockspace Media explores the theories surrounding an 80,000 BTC ($8.6B) wallet that moved after 13 years of dormancy, debunking government seizure and Mt Gox distribution claims while concluding the boring truth is simply an early adopter cashing out (Jul 15 | 5 min read).

• Jurvis and Jesse Posner, Bitcoin protocol developers, in a post on Delving Bitcoin, introduce Chain Code Delegation, a collaborative custody approach that enhances privacy by withholding BIP-32 chain codes from custodians while sharing only scalar tweaks at signing time, preventing custodians from viewing entire key trees or monitoring counterparty transactions (Jul 14 | 7 min read).  

• Juan Galt, writing for Bitcoin Magazine, explores how innovative home mining devices like Bitaxe and Heatbit are reviving retail participation in Bitcoin mining, offering hobbyists accessible entry points that prioritize education and decentralization over pure profitability while challenging industrial mining dominance (Jul 14 | 10 min read).

REFERRAL PROGRAMME TOGETHER W/ OSHI*

REFER A FRIEND,

STACK 2000 SATS EACH, FOR FREE

1. Share your unique link: https://www.btcbreakdown.com/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER&utm_source=BTCPLACEHOLDER (need to be subscribed and logged in to see your unique link)

2. New subscriber joins and optimally engages by opening ≥ 50% of issues received and making 2 unique link clicks within 15 days.

3. Boom: 2000 sats to you and them. We’ll automatically email both of you the moment it lands.

*T&Cs: One real human ↔ one inbox. Duplicate or bot sign ups = nuke & lose sats. Fraud flags void payouts. We may adjust rewards if a God candle melts charts. Max 100 referrals per individual. Questions? Hit [email protected]. Ready? Copy, paste, orange pill, stack sats. 🚀

TOOLS & PROJECTS

• New on Geyser: Bitcoin Famba, a grassroots initiative based in Maputo-Matola, Mozambique, empowers communities through Bitcoin education, circular economy building, and youth programs, translating resources into Portuguese while onboarding local merchants to create financial freedom.

• New on Geyser: Bitcoin Timber is a sovereign sawmill project in Guyana that combines renewable energy Bitcoin mining with premium lumber production, seeking 1 BTC to fund river crossing infrastructure and container headquarters.

• Work For Satoshi is a Bitcoin-only freelance marketplace that connects people who want to get paid in Bitcoin with people who need work done.

• DescriptorQR generates compact QR codes for wallet descriptors using 30-40% fewer bytes than standard generators.

• The Bitcoin Journey is an educational website that helps people understand Bitcoin's role as a sound money alternative to the broken fiat monetary system.

• Bitcoin++ privacy edition brings together open-source developers, protocol experts, and privacy advocates in Riga, Latvia for deep exploration of Bitcoin privacy solutions, coinjoin implementations, and peer-to-peer exchange technologies on August 7-8, 2025.

• Alpen Labs unveils Glock, a garbled circuit-based cryptographic primitive that enables minimal-trust verification of offchain computation on Bitcoin with up to 1000x cost reduction compared to BitVM2.

• DATUM Gateway, an open-source mining protocol by OCEAN mining, launches v0.4.0 with proof-of-work splitting across multiple Bitcoin addresses, enabling revenue sharing and donations.

• Alby Hub releases v1.18.2 with major features including BOLT12 offers which would enable asynchronous payments, integrated swaps, channel rebalancing, and lightning addresses for sub-wallets.

• LND v0.19.2 releases with critical bug fixes addressing payment confirmation issues, startup freezes, and memory leaks while improving peer connections and test network compatibility.

MEME OF THE DAY

Bitcoin Breakdown has the highest signal-to-noise ratio in its class. If you find our work useful and want to see the publication grow, consider supporting us on Geyser.

Every contribution is a sign that we’re on the right track. We know your time is valuable, and we’re here to help you make the most of it. Thank you for your support.

Thank you for reading!

If you received it from a friend and would like to subscribe, you can do so here:

Until our next transmission,

P.S. Looking to start your own newsletter? Use this link to sign up for beehiiv and get a 30-day free trial plus a 20% discount.