France Calls BTC ‘Unproductive Wealth’ 🇫🇷, Bitcoin’s ‘Silent IPO’ Shows Maturity 📊, German Party Eyes Strategic BTC 🇩🇪

Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #394 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.

Now for today’s Top Stories:

• 🇫🇷 France Labels Bitcoin 'Unproductive Wealth' for New Tax

• 🏭 Bitcoin's 'Silent IPO' Shows Mature Market Evolution

• 🇩🇪 AfD Pushes Bitcoin Into Germany’s Strategic Vault

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Nov 3, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🇫🇷 France Labels Bitcoin 'Unproductive Wealth' for New Tax

France just passed a law taxing large Bitcoin holdings alongside yachts and luxury cars as 'unproductive wealth.' The new tax hits individuals with net assets over 2M euros at a 1% rate, including unrealized Bitcoin and crypto gains. Previously, France only taxed real estate wealth, but now digital assets fall under the same rules. Bitcoiners must report all holdings, including foreign wallets, to avoid penalties. Ledger co-founder Éric Larchevêque criticized the move as punishing savers seeking financial protection outside the fiat system. Cointelegraph

🏭 Bitcoin's 'Silent IPO' Shows Mature Market Evolution

A weekend essay by 30+ year Wall Street veteran, Jordi Visser, titled ‘Bitcoin’s Silent IPO’ went viral. The easy outlines that Bitcoin's current consolidation resembles a traditional IPO distribution, as early holders methodically sell to institutional buyers, evidenced by Galaxy Digital's recent $9B transaction. This isn't panic selling, but rather strategic exits by original adopters who've already won and feel that, for the first time, they can now exit their position without hurting the market. The ownership transition from concentrated to distributed hands promises reduced volatility and greater institutional adoption, positioning Bitcoin as a mature and stable asset, despite current retail frustration. BeInCrypto

🇩🇪 AfD Pushes Bitcoin Into Germany’s Strategic Vault

Germany’s main opposition party, AfD, has filed a motion to recognize Bitcoin as a national strategic asset, arguing it’s a world apart from altcoins and shouldn’t be smothered by the EU’s MiCA rules. The proposal defends tax perks like a 12-month capital gains exemption and VAT-free trading, plus citizens’ right to self-custody. AfD envisions Bitcoin as a modern gold – potentially even in national reserves—joining a growing EU trend toward stacking sats for financial sovereignty. Atlas21

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PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

QUICK BITS

• Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, marks Bitcoin’s 17th anniversary by praising its flawless uptime and contrasting it with the ongoing federal shutdown that has sidelined 900,000 workers.

• Steak ‘n Shake rolls out a Bitcoin treasury, stacking all BTC payments in a strategic reserve while donating 210 sats per ‘Bitcoin Meal’ to OpenSats to fuel Bitcoin Core development.

• Japan launches its first state-linked Bitcoin mining project, weaving Canaan’s 4.5 MW hydro-cooled Avalon rigs into its renewable energy strategy.

• Coinhub, a Bitcoin ATM operator, fined $675K by California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation for overcharging customers and violating digital asset laws.

• Core Scientific shareholders reject a $9B merger with CoreWeave, ending the all-stock deal that would have given CoreWeave access to 1.3 gigawatts of power across the Bitcoin miner's data center network.

• Iran's energy chief reveals that 95% of the country's 427,000 Bitcoin mining devices operate illegally, consuming over 1,400 megawatts.

• Nordea, Scandinavia's largest bank with $286B in assets under management, reverses its 2018 Bitcoin ban to offer customers a Bitcoin exchange-traded product in December.

• Riot Platforms, a major Bitcoin mining company, shifts strategy to maximize power value rather than just mining BTC, planning a 1-gigawatt AI data center campus despite a 27% production increase.

• Coinbase adds 2772 BTC worth $300M to take its total holdings to 14,548 BTC.

• Bitcoin whales now systematically create market fakeouts through 'Buy the Rumor, Sell the News' strategies during major economic announcements, according to Santiment analyst Brian Quinlivan.

• du, UAE's leading telecommunications company, launches Cloud Miner platform enabling residents to participate in regulated Bitcoin mining through subscription-based computational power rental without hardware or energy costs.

• Fidelity now enables retail customers to deposit and withdraw Bitcoin directly from brokerage accounts.

QUICK MEDIA

• Jordi Visser of 22V Research, in an interview with Anthony Pompliano, compares Bitcoin's sideways price action this year to a 'silent IPO,' suggesting that BTC is entering a maturation phase where early whales take profits while institutions quietly accumulate (Nov 2 | 3:29 min watch). 

• Brad Mills, a Bitcoin VC, surprises trick-or-treaters on Halloween with $100 Bitcoin cards hidden in candy, capturing their excitement as they recognize what they've just received (Nov 1 | 1:28 min watch). 

• Allen Farrington of Axiom, in an appearance on the Bitcoin Archive podcast, argues that fiat currency systems inherently favor capital over labor by giving capitalists access to cheap money while forcing workers into a cycle of rent-paying and asset monetization, and proposes that Bitcoin could restore balance by ending financialization and enabling proper price discovery (Nov 1 | 32:27 min watch).

• Bitcoin Straight Up explains how Bitcoin's security relies on 4 pillars: energy costs, distributed nodes, an unbribable minority, and medium of exchange usage, and how custodial solutions like ETFs and stablecoins threaten this security by concentrating Bitcoin and undermining its monetary function (Oct 29 | 18:50 min watch). 

• Forrest HODL of Bitcoin Not Crypto argues that whether the CIA created Bitcoin is irrelevant, as Bitcoin's open, permissionless network cannot be controlled by any single entity, making its decentralized properties more important than its mysterious origins (Oct 28 | 14:23 min watch). 

• Unbanked, a documentary that explores Bitcoin as 'freedom money' that could revolutionize global finance, particularly for the unbanked population, is now available on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Google TV (Oct 31 | 2:11 min watch).

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