Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #332 of Bitcoin Breakdown, where every Tuesday and Thursday, we bring you the latest must-read Bitcoin thought leadership articles and the newest tools and projects you should know about.

But first, today’s Top Stories:

• ⚡ Bitcoin Tipping Goes Live on 𝕏 w/ BitBit Integration

• 🏈 Bo Hines Takes Tether Advisory Role

• 🇨🇳 China's Banking Giant CMB Launches Exchange in Hong Kong

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Aug 19, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

⚡ Bitcoin Tipping Goes Live on 𝕏 w/ BitBit Integration

BitBit just launched the first self-custodial Bitcoin tipping solution on 𝕏, powered by Spark technology built by Lightspark. Users can now send bitcoin tips directly through 𝕏 usernames without needing wallets upfront - recipients get 21 days to claim their tips or funds automatically refund. The Chrome extension streamlines Lightning Network complexity, allowing users to maintain full control of their funds and demonstrating Bitcoin's readiness for mainstream social media adoption. Bitcoin News

🏈 Bo Hines Takes Tether Advisory Role

Tether has tapped former White House Crypto Council director Bo Hines as strategic advisor for digital assets and US strategy, signaling a major push into the world’s largest economy. Hines, known for shaping pro-innovation Bitcoin and crypto policies under Trump, will work on building strong policymaker ties and driving domestic infrastructure investment. With nearly $5B already reinvested in the US economy, Tether is doubling down on its stateside presence and eyeing new growth opportunities beyond stablecoins. Cointelegraph

🇨🇳 China's Banking Giant CMB Launches Exchange in Hong Kong

China Merchants Bank, the world’s 8th largest bank with over $1.7T in assets, just launched a 24/7 Bitcoin and crypto trading platform in Hong Kong, making it a pioneer in institutional Bitcoin adoption. The exchange offers Bitcoin, Etherium, and Tether trading exclusively to professional investors after receiving regulatory approval. The move comes after the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission approved the bank’s application for a virtual asset service provider license in mid-July and is expected to influence similar projects within Hong Kong’s favorable business climate. Cryptopolitan

POLL #332

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

OPINION & ANALYSIS

• Kudzai Kutukwa, a Bitcoin writer and educator, argues that the Bank for International Settlements' recently proposed Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance scoring system for Bitcoin would destroy its fungibility and create a global financial surveillance state that undermines monetary freedom (Aug 18 | 8 min read).

• Protos explores the heated debate over whether Michael Saylor's (Micro)Strategy constitutes a Ponzi scheme, examining Andy Constan's accusations against Lyn Alden's defense regarding the bitcoin treasury company's dividend funding through capital raises (Aug 18 | 3 min read).

• Ivan Kaleja & Gabriel Kurman, in an excerpt from their book 'Bitcoin Circular Economies', argue that Bitcoin enables isolated communities to connect with global value chains through personalized jurisdictions, transforming the transition from industrial-era centralization to information-age authenticity and local-global economic integration (Aug 18 | 5 min read).

• Zachary Kelman, an attorney and writer in the Bitcoin and crypto ecosystem, argues that the GENIUS Act shifts dollar clearing power from Wall Street banks to stablecoins, challenging financial surveillance and US monetary control while expanding global access to BTC and the dollar (Aug 15 | 4 min read).

• Pierre Rochard, a prominent Bitcoin OG and advocate, argues in an 𝕏 thread that Bitcoin's security budget problem is already solved through market mechanisms where fee markets automatically scale up attack costs when finality is threatened, making permanent tail inflation unnecessary (Aug 15 | 2 min read).

• Joakim Book, a Bitcoin writer and editor, profiles Austrian engineer Maximilian Obwexer, whose company 21energy turns home Bitcoin mining into an efficient heating solution that tackles Europe’s costly energy, grid instability, and renewable integration challenges while offering users profit and energy independence (Aug 15 | 4 min read).

• Janusz of Bitcoin++ Insider argues that recent Arkade and Spark integrations at Baltic Honeybadger prove that Lightning is evolving into the universal interoperability layer connecting diverse Bitcoin L2 protocols, enabling seamless payments across different networks without user complexity (Aug 14 | 6 min read).

• Kaan Farahani, Research Associate at Luxor Technology, argues that Block's Proto Rig represents a revolutionary shift from disposable mining equipment to modular infrastructure, offering 90-second repairs, 15-20% upgrade savings, and potentially shifting bitcoin mining from going through replacement cycles to long-term asset investment (Aug 14 | 4 min read).

• Dikshant, an Ark Protocol developer, demonstrates how Ark Protocol solves Bitcoin's exponential complexity problem in zero-collateral lotteries, transforming the impractical 𝑂(2^𝑁) pre-signed transaction requirement into a scalable, trustless system that eliminates participant collateral needs while maintaining cryptographic security guarantees (Aug 14 | 5 min read).

• Martin Jonas of Fairgate reveals a critical vulnerability in Bitcoin protocols using one-time signatures like Winternitz that allows malicious parties to exploit transaction size limits and steal funds by forcing timeouts in turn-based BitVM-style protocols (Aug 14 | 4 min read).

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TOOLS & PROJECTS

• New on Geyser: Bitcoin Witsand aims to make the town of Witsand, South Africa, a thriving coastal Bitcoin hub by enabling residents and visitors to buy goods and services in BTC while growing a sustainable circular economy

• New on Geyser: The Last Money is a book that explores 5,000 years of monetary slavery and Bitcoin's role as humanity's final architecture for a free civilization.

• Nostrpay is an open-source Lightning wallet for kids with parental controls to teach them self-custody and peer-to-peer transactions through an educational interface.

• NostrMusic is a Flutter-based, Nostr-integrated Android app that streams music from Wavlake and enables instant Lightning payments to artists.

• The Bitcoin Coloring Book by Conor Chepenik teaches kids and families about sound money, self-custody, and financial freedom through engaging, educational coloring activities.

• John Carvalho unveils the ‘Atomic Economy architecture’ for the world's first digital free-market society, representing his company Synonym's updated vision for engineering freedom through technology.

• The Bitcoin Fee Bee provides an overview of the current and historical Bitcoin fee market.

• Yall is a multi-platform social media posting app that enables simultaneous content sharing across Mastodon, Bluesky, Nostr, 𝕏, and Micro dot blog from one desktop interface.

• SecureBit dot chat is a peer-to-peer messenger that integrates Lightning Network payments with military-grade cryptography for anonymous communication.

• Stratum Mining's SV2 UniFFI repository provides UniFFI language bindings to Stratum V2 Reference Implementation, enabling multi-language library access with current Python support.

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