Whales Feast As $90K Breaks 🐋, Mt Gox Drops $956M 💸, ECB Panics Over Dollar Stablecoins 🇪🇺

Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #407 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.

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Now for today’s Top Stories:

• 🐋 Bitcoin Whales Go Shopping As Bitcoin's $90K Floor Gives Way

• 💸 Mt Gox Dumps $956M in Bitcoin as Markets Bleed

• 🇪🇺 ECB Warns Dollar Stablecoins Could Sink European Monetary Policy

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Nov 18, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🐋 Bitcoin Whales Go Shopping As Bitcoin's $90K Floor Gives Way

As Bitcoin slipped below $90K for the first time in 7 months, Glassnode reported a notable spike in the number of Bitcoin whale wallets holding above 1,000 BTC starting last Friday, with mega-whales accumulating during 'extreme fear' conditions. Nearly everyone who bought Bitcoin in the past 155 days is now in the red, with BTC down 25% from October highs. With the average US spot Bitcoin ETF investor being pushed into losses for the first time since launch, analysts like Bitwise's Matt Hougan however call current prices a 'generational opportunity.’ Cointelegraph

💸 Mt Gox Dumps $956M in Bitcoin as Markets Bleed

Mt Gox transferred 10,608 BTC worth $956M to new wallets on Monday, sparking fears of creditor repayments and potential sell-offs. The timing couldn't be worse, with Bitcoin already sliding below $90K amid market turmoil. The defunct exchange still holds 34,689 BTC worth $3.1B from its 2014 hack that saw 850K BTC stolen. Repayment efforts continue with a 2026 deadline for claimants. CoinDesk

🇪🇺 ECB Warns Dollar Stablecoins Could Sink European Monetary Policy

Dutch central bank governor Olaf Sleijpen warns the $300B stablecoin market poses systemic risks to European financial stability after surging 48% under new US regulations. Dollar-pegged tokens now threaten European monetary sovereignty, potentially forcing ECB intervention if mass redemptions trigger Treasury sell-offs. Meanwhile, 9 major European banks are launching a euro-backed stablecoin by 2026 to counter US dominance and reduce reliance on dollar-denominated digital assets. Cryptonews

POLL #407

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

OPINION & ANALYSIS

• PoW@MaX, a Bitcoiner writing on Nostr, argues using systems theory that the Fiat monetary system's inherent credit expansion and currency debasement creates a reinforcing feedback loop that systematically strengthens Bitcoin's network effects, driving an inevitable transition from elastic political money to inelastic algorithmic money (Nov 17 | 5 min read).

• Dan Gould, lead developer of Payjoin Dev Kit, in an interview with Atlas21, explains how the privacy-enhancing Bitcoin protocol will accelerate adoption in 2026 through improved tooling, asynchronous functionality, and seamless wallet integration that benefits the entire network by breaking surveillance heuristics (Nov 17 | 6 min read).

• Contra, another Bitcoiner writing on Nostr, argues that delayed gratification creates exponential returns across fitness, relationships, knowledge and wealth, while Bitcoin's fixed supply and four-year cycles teach patience in a fiat system designed to reward instant consumption (Nov 17 | 13 min read).

• Michael Matulef, a Bitcoiner writing for the Mises Institute, explains how inflation represents not merely rising prices but the artificial expansion of money supply by governments, which systematically corrupts society's moral foundation by rewarding debt over savings, destroying honest price signals, and ultimately transforming civilized citizens into dependent subjects through legalized counterfeiting (Nov 16 | 7 min read).

• Saifedean Ammous, Austrian economist and author of The Bitcoin Standard, publishes the first chapter of his new book The Gold Standard, which presents a fictional alternative history exploring what the twentieth century would have looked like if the world had maintained hard money instead of adopting fiat currency (Nov 15 | 11 min read).

• Jackson, aka Macrojack, author of the 'Sound Money, Sound Life' newsletter, argues that younger generations cannot afford homes because the housing crisis stems from monetary debasement since abandoning the gold standard in 1971, not market dysfunction (Nov 15 | 5 min read).

• Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike, reveals how his 2019 proposal to integrate Lightning Network payments into Cash App has finally materialized, enabling 58M users to send USD payments over bitcoin rails without owning BTC, revolutionizing cross-border settlements and eliminating traditional banking intermediaries (Nov 15 | 6 min read).

• Cole Walmsley, author of the 'Beyond Infinity' newsletter, argues that Square's integration of Bitcoin payments for over 4M merchants represents the biggest leap in real-world Bitcoin adoption, challenging the narrative that 'nobody uses Bitcoin to pay for anything' (Nov 15 | 6 min read).

• Che Kohler of The Bitcoin Manual explores how Germany's Left and Green parties seek to eliminate bitcoin's tax-free status after one year of holding, arguing that P2P purchases with 5% premiums offer better long-term value than KYC exchanges facing inevitable 26% taxation (Nov 14 | 12 min read).

• Carl Frisko, Head of Marketing at Bitcoin Well, argues that rising socialism across all political parties stems from corrupted fiat money systems, positioning Bitcoin as the honest monetary solution that intellectual giants like Mises, Rand, and Rothbard would have embraced to restore economic freedom (Nov 13 | 11 min read).

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TOOLS & PROJECTS

• New on Geyser: Bitcoin Tofo builds a grassroots Bitcoin circular economy in Mozambique's coastal tourism destination, where merchants accept sats from travelers, creating sustainable value loops that strengthen local commerce and financial inclusion.

• New on Geyser: Bitcoin Makueni is a grassroots initiative that trains 50 merchants in Kenya to accept BTC payments via Lightning Network, empowering financial sovereignty and reducing remittance costs in Makueni County's agricultural economy.

• Geyser launches All-or-Nothing funding that locks contributions in smart contracts until projects reach their goals, protecting creators and contributors while enabling global access without custody or high fees.

• The 256 Foundation releases Mujina, an open-source Bitcoin mining firmware built in Rust with Stratum V2 support, targeting Linux-based systems and multiple ASIC drivers to provide customizable alternatives to proprietary mining solutions.

• Liana Wallet, an open-source bitcoin custody solution, provides businesses with secure, auditable self-custody through role-based access controls and time-locked recovery mechanisms.

• Simple Proof, a blockchain timestamping service provider, partners with El Salvador's foreign affairs and environment ministries to secure government documents using the Bitcoin blockchain.

• CryoBrick transforms feature phones into air-gapped Bitcoin cold storage devices, offering secure self-custody without internet connectivity, hardware wallet costs, or privacy risks for inconspicuous cryptocurrency management.

• Bull Bitcoin's BULL Wallet integrates SeedSigner support, enabling secure bitcoin transactions through QR code connections with the open-source, air-gapped DIY signing device for complete self-custodial control.

• Lendasat, a Bitcoin-native peer-to-peer lending platform built on the Ark protocol, launches Lendaswap, an atomic swap exchange enabling instant, non-custodial trades between BTC and stablecoins across Bitcoin and other shitcoin chains.

• Bad-opsec is a GitHub repository that compiles real-world operational security failures from hackers, cybercriminals, and state actors to educate users on privacy mistakes through court documents, investigations, and case studies.

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