Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #328 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:

• 📱 Google Play Cracks Down on Custodial Wallets

• 🚀 Bitcoin Smashes Records as Risk-On Rally Continues

• 🇯🇵 Metaplanet Crushes Japan's Blue-Chip Giants with 190% Bitcoin Surge

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TODAY’S TOP STORIES

📱 Google Play Cracks Down on Custodial Wallets

Google Play's new licensing rules for Bitcoin and crypto wallets sparked community backlash until the tech giant quickly clarified that non-custodial wallets are exempt. Starting October 29, all custodial wallet providers in over 15 jurisdictions, including the US and EU, must register with financial regulators. US developers must register as Money Services Businesses and secure state money transmitter licenses, while European apps need MiCA compliance. The crackdown could reshape global access to custodial services. Good thing you can just bypass Google by using Obtainium or Zapstore. Atlas21

🚀 Bitcoin Smashes Records as Risk-On Rally Continues

Bitcoin rocketed to a fresh record above $124K, riding alongside record-breaking US equity markets in a coordinated risk-on rally. Trump's Bitcoin- and crypto-friendly policies and corporate treasury adoption led by (Micro)Strategy continue to fuel demand. Cooling inflation data boosted Federal Reserve rate cut expectations, sending capital flowing from traditional assets into volatile digital tokens. This rally reflects structural institutional buying rather than just retail euphoria. Bloomberg

🇯🇵 Metaplanet Crushes Japan's Blue-Chip Giants with 190% Bitcoin Surge

Metaplanet has absolutely demolished Japan's biggest companies, soaring 190% year-to-date while the TOPIX Core 30 managed just 7.2%. The Bitcoin-focused firm outpaced giants like Toyota, Sony, and Mitsubishi, attracting over 180,000 shareholders - up 350% since launching its Bitcoin strategy. Now planning to raise $3.7B to buy more BTC, Metaplanet aims to own 1% of Bitcoin's total supply by 2027. Cointelegraph

POLL #328

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

OPINION & ANALYSIS

• Aqua Wallet in an 𝕏 thread explains how Bitcoin dust (tiny amounts so small they cost more in fees to spend than they're worth) serves as the network's defense against spam attacks and blockchain bloat (Aug 14 | 2 min read).

• Decentra Suze, CEO and Co-founder of Bitcoin Policy UK, criticizes the Financial Times for conflating Bitcoin with 'crypto' in corporate adoption coverage, arguing this misleading narrative influences policymakers and could lead to misguided regulation based on fiction rather than facts (Aug 13 | 2 min read).

• Joakim Book, a Bitcoin writer and editor, contends that becoming a Bitcoiner rarely happens through a single 'orange-pill' moment but rather through a gradual process of intellectual evolution influenced by multiple sources, conversations, and world events over time (Aug 13 | 4 min read).

• Shinobi of Bitcoin Magazine explores how the Lightning Network's modular components can be replaced over time while questioning whether such evolution would still constitute the same network, comparing it to the philosophical Ship of Theseus paradox (Aug 13 | 7 min read).

• Eric Yakes, Co-Founder of Epoch, analyzes how Bitcoin can transform banking architecture in a comprehensive 100-page report by Epoch, predicting banks will adopt BTC as correspondent banking infrastructure and reserve asset, ultimately displacing stablecoins as the dominant digital money (Aug 13 | 60 min read).

• Murray A Rudd and Dennis Porter from Satoshi Action Education develop a bottom-up economic model forecasting Bitcoin prices, finding a 75% likelihood that bitcoin will exceed $4.81M by April 2036 based on supply-demand dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations (Aug 12 | 76 min read).

• William Jones, Director of National Security Programs at Heights Labs, in a policy brief for the Bitcoin Policy Institute, examines how Tornado Cash sanctions reveal the complex intersection of privacy, law enforcement, and constitutional rights, arguing that traditional regulatory frameworks struggle with decentralized systems and privacy tools serve legitimate purposes beyond criminal activity (Aug 12 | 5 min read).

• Juan Galt of Bitcoin Magazine reports how Simple Proof CEO Carlos Toriello and Screven County Elections Supervisor Stacey Scott pioneered using Bitcoin's blockchain to secure election results, making Georgia's Screven County the first US county to timestamp election data on Bitcoin's immutable ledger (Aug 12 | 3 min read).

• Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures argues in a Pirate Wires article that while Trump's debanking executive order effectively ends Biden's systematic financial exclusion of crypto firms, the real solution requires targeting unaccountable regulators rather than compelling banks to serve all clients (Aug 12 | 13 min read). 

• Kudzai Kutukwa, a Bitcoin writer and educator, argues that governments and corporations are systematically dismantling internet freedom through coordinated surveillance infrastructure, transforming the web from an open frontier into a 'permissioned' digital panopticon where privacy becomes impossible and algorithmic control replaces human agency (Aug 11 | 8 min read).

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TOOLS & PROJECTS

• New on Geyser: Bitcoin Graffiti Jam brings together street art, live music, and Bitcoin at London's renowned Stockwell Hall of Fame for an underground celebration of creativity and freedom.

• New on Geyser: Receipt dot Cash streamlines fiat receipt scanning and instant splits for bitcoiners, enabling async Lightning or Cashu paybacks, encrypted nostr sharing, multilingual views, and seamless tip and AI prompt payments.

• Ark Labs successfully deploys their protocol on mainnet at Baltic Honeybadger 2025, enabling seamless Lightning payments through Arkade swaps and VTXO settlements via BTCPayServer integration.

• Bitcoin Retirement Calculator by Newhedge lets you see how stacking sats over time could play out using custom inputs and real historical data with an interactive chart to visualize it.

• Geyser now adds a Lightning QR code for every project listed on its platform, making it easier for people to donate to projects listed on the platform.

• Amboss launches a new version of their Magma service, enabling users to buy instant Lightning Network connections for receiving payments without account signup, requiring only their node pubkey and a Lightning payment, simplifying liquidity access.

• Broadnym is a privacy-preserving Bitcoin transaction broadcaster that uses the Nym mixnet to anonymize transaction submissions through a server component and a web UI interface.

• Dusty Daemon, a Lightning developer, says he created the first multi-channel splice transaction on testnet, which allows for more flexible adjustments to Lightning channel capacities without the need for multiple on-chain transactions, potentially reducing costs and improving user experience.

• Zone21 launches an open-source repository featuring 13-factor risk scores for Bitcoin-backed loan providers, enabling borrowers and researchers to compare lending products through quantitative methodology and downloadable datasets.

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