1st US BTC Municipal Bond 🏔️, Bitcoin Core Gets Clean Bill 🛡️, Abu Dhabi Triples BTC Stake 🇦🇪

Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #409 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:

• 🏔️ New Hampshire Blazes Trail with Bitcoin-Backed Bonds

• 🛡️ Bitcoin Core Passes First Security Audit with Flying Colors

• 🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi Sovereign Fund Triples Down on Bitcoin ETFs

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Nov 20, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🏔️ New Hampshire Blazes Trail with Bitcoin-Backed Bonds

New Hampshire’s Business Finance Authority just approved a $100M municipal bond backed by BTC, marking the first of its kind in the US. Businesses can secure loans with over-collateralized BTC held by BitGo, avoiding taxpayer risk while unlocking capital without selling their sats. Designed with Wave Digital Assets and Rosemawr Management, the bond links Bitcoin to the $140T global debt market, with fees and gains funneled into a Bitcoin Economic Development Fund. Atlas21

🛡️ Bitcoin Core Passes First Security Audit with Flying Colors

Bitcoin Core just aced its first independent security audit, with French firm Quarkslab finding zero serious vulnerabilities after examining 200,000 lines of code over 104 days. The auditors called it the 'most mature and well-tested' codebase they've evaluated, identifying only two minor issues with no impact on consensus or security. This clean bill of health comes as Bitcoin Core faces criticism over not censoring non-financial blockchain data. Cointelegraph

🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi Sovereign Fund Triples Down on Bitcoin ETFs 

Abu Dhabi’s Investment Council more than tripled its stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust to nearly 8M shares in Q3, worth about $518M before the market dip. Calling BTC ‘digital gold,’ the sovereign fund sees it as a long-term store of value alongside traditional assets. The move bolsters Abu Dhabi’s bid to become a global crypto hub, with other big players like El Salvador and Kazakhstan also stacking sats despite recent ETF outflows and price volatility. Bitcoin Magazine

POLL #409

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

OPINION & ANALYSIS

• Prashanth, founder of Bringin, argues that custodial Bitcoin wallets are merely 'crypto-themed banks' that sacrifice user sovereignty, explaining why his company chose the harder path of building Europe's first self-custodial Lightning wallet with euro banking integration (Nov 20 | 4 min read).

• Kevin Cai, Engineer at Lightning Labs, in an interview with Stephan Livera summarized by Lightning News, argues that defining Bitcoin 'spam' is subjective and that fighting it through consensus changes risks undermining the network's core censorship-resistant principles while economic incentives should naturally guide transaction policies (Nov 19 | 19 min read).

• Aleksandar Svetski, CEO of SATlantis, details his company's strategic pivot from a social travel app to a Bitcoin-native events platform targeting the emerging 'Experience Economy' as people seek real-world connections over digital engagement (Nov 19 | 9 min read).

• Emile Jellinek of Atlas21 explores the diverse business opportunities within the Bitcoin ecosystem, comparing it to a growing tree with branches representing various sectors like mining, exchanges, and Lightning Network services, while providing guidance on launching successful Bitcoin ventures that leverage the technology's unique characteristics (Nov 19 | 8 min read).

• Starknet, a project working on scaling Bitcoin, explores how zero-knowledge proofs enable Cashu ecash tokens to support arbitrary spending conditions through Cairo programming language while maintaining privacy, proposing a new 'Cairo Spending Conditions' system that uses STARK proofs for verification (Nov 18 | 5 min read).

• Efrat Fenigson, host of 'You're The Voice' podcast, argues that El Salvador under President Bukele is transforming into a truly sovereign nation through Bitcoin adoption, demonstrating how Bitcoin can enable economic freedom, safety, and self-determination while other countries struggle with global institutional control (Nov 18 | 6 min read).

• Kevin Williams, a journalist based in Ohio, writing for CNBC, explains how entrepreneurs and companies across America are exploring innovative bitcoin mining rigs that generate heat for homes and businesses during winter, repurposing Bitcoin's energy-intensive computing power to offset heating costs while mining sats (Nov 16 | 6 min read).

• Max Hillebrand, a privacy advocate and contributor to White Noise, argues that wallet architecture determines your financial privacy, comparing four methods from full nodes' perfect anonymity to Electrum's surveillance risks, advocating for informed choices based on your threat model (Nov 15 | 5 min read).

• Melissa Fleur Afshar, reporter at Newsweek, examines how Jack Dorsey's diVine app reboot promises to combat AI-generated content flooding social media by offering users access to 100,000 archived Vine clips while strictly filtering synthetic media in favor of human-created six-second videos (Nov 14 | 4 min read). 

• Andrew G Stanton, an entrepreneur in the Bitcoin ecosystem, argues that 'Mystery Babylon' from Revelation represents a recurring centralized operating system of debt-based control, narrative dominance, and extraction that modern institutions perpetuate, while Bitcoin and decentralized protocols offer humanity's first real exit strategy (Nov 19 | 5 min read).

• Max Hillebrand also exposes how NIP-17's 'deniable' messaging system fails to provide true deniability due to signed seals that enable gossip attacks and zero-knowledge proof vulnerabilities, arguing that decentralized authenticated messaging cannot achieve Signal-style deniability (Nov 19 | 3 min read).

• Natalie Brunell, host of the Coin Stories podcast, in an interview with Tessa of Bitkey, argues that bitcoin empowers economic freedom for all people regardless of background, offering hope that fixing broken monetary systems can create collaborative societies where everyone has equal access to financial tools (Nov 18 | 7 min read).

• Bitcoin Magazine summarizes Natalie Brunell's new book 'Bitcoin Is for Everyone,' which argues that inflation and monetary manipulation make life unaffordable and positions bitcoin as an inclusive solution that empowers individuals to regain financial control and build lasting value (Nov 18 | 2 min read).

• Jordi, a Satlantis team member, in an interview with Janusz, Lightning News, explains how the Nostr-based events platform serves as 'Bitcoin native Eventbrite' while exploring how Bitcoiners develop lower time preference, focusing on health, family and meaningful connections through real-world meetups (Nov 18 | 6 min read).

• BitcoinActuary, a UK based Actuary exploring Bitcoin and writing pseudonymously, explores how Bitcoin Tontine by Tontine Trust offers bitcoiners a transparent alternative to traditional annuities by pooling longevity risk in Bitcoin-backed trusts that provide mathematically guaranteed lifetime income through innovative proof-of-life technology (Nov 17 | 7 min read).

• Joel Khalili, reporter at WIRED, details how Sazmining CEO Kent Halliburton lost over $200,000 in bitcoin to sophisticated scammers who used elaborate in-person meetings, luxury hotels, and social engineering tactics to steal his sats through a compromised wallet app (Nov 17 | 12 min read).

• David Yaffe-Bellany, reporter at New York Times, explores how wealthy bitcoin investors learn counter-kidnapping techniques and self-defense strategies amid a surge of 'wrench attacks' numbering over 60 this year targeting Bitcoin and crypto holders, driven by bitcoin's record prices creating new millionaires with little personal security (Nov 17 | 7 min read). 

• Avi Burra, a novelist, filmmaker, and architect, argues that art has followed a Hegelian arc from classical beauty through modernist rebellion to current nihilistic 'late-stage modernism,' proposing a 'Bitcoin Renaissance' synthesis that combines technical mastery with experimental courage while rejecting cynicism to restore beauty's pursuit through low time preference thinking (Nov 15 | 2 min read).

• Vince Quill of Cointelegraph reports that the US Mint has produced its final penny after 232 years, as each coin costs 3.7 times its face value to manufacture due to inflation, highlighting why Bitcoin advocates argue BTC's fixed supply makes it superior to devaluing fiat currencies (Nov 13 | 3 min read).

• Bank of America Institute economists reveal that nearly a quarter of US households live paycheck to paycheck in 2025, with growth slowing but continuing as inflation outpaces wage gains for lower-income families (Nov 10 | 13 min read).

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TOOLS & PROJECTS

• New on Geyser: BitcoinEventsHQ launches BitcoinOnly Events, a Bitcoin-native calendar platform for conferences, summits and meetups, seeking $15,000 funding to develop Lightning-powered account system replacing legacy platforms like Eventbrite.

• New on Geyser: WallAxe is a wall-plugged Bitcoin mining device that integrates Bitaxe technology into a compact, inconspicuous form factor that eliminates power bricks and stands for seamless home deployment.

• Bitizenship, a Singapore-based fintech group building Bitcoin-aligned residency pathways, expands to Italy with BTC Italia and launches The Bitcoin Dolce Visa program offering a €250K startup investment pathway for Italian residency.

• BTC Map, a bitcoin merchant directory platform, celebrates adding its 1000th Square merchant in just 10 days with 1500 more businesses awaiting verification.

• Wavecard and Alby Hub enable Europeans to truly live on bitcoin, automatically converting BTC for daily expenses, bills, and rent payments while keeping funds in self-custody, eliminating the need to short bitcoin by holding fiat.

• Moneydevkit, a Lightning-native checkout solution for Next.js App Router applications that enables developers to quickly integrate Bitcoin payments with bundled client hooks, hosted checkout surfaces, and server handlers for rapid deployment, launches its public beta.

• BTCPay Server’s Nicolas Dorier introduces a monetization feature allowing Bitcoin ambassadors to charge access to their servers, enabling subscription-based revenue models with trial periods and user access controls.

• Rust Lightning introduces natively asynchronous splicing support, zero-fee commitment channels, async payments, LSPS5 support, and enhanced HTLC handling with improved performance and bug fixes in version 0.2.0.

• Blockstream Jade receives a major camera upgrade with 35% faster PSBT scans, improved QR reliability, and brightness adjustment features for Bitcoin transactions.

• Cashu Brrr enables users to print bitcoin-backed ecash notes with QR codes for physical cash-like transactions that can be redeemed by scanning.

• CandyPi by Elsirion, a Rust-powered Lightning Network candy dispenser for Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, displays QR invoice codes on ST7735 LCD and controls motor dispensing via Fedimint wallet payments.

• Gittr dot space is a decentralized Git platform with Bitcoin incentives, combining GitHub-like functionality with Nostr protocol for censorship-resistant open source software repository management.

• Gossip Observer by jharveyb, an open-source Rust project, collects Lightning Network gossip traffic and computes metrics to inform set-reconciliation protocols for replacing message flooding.

• Oviato launches passkey native Bitcoin wallet SDK at Bitcoin Amsterdam, enabling developers to create self-custodial wallets accessible via Face ID, Touch ID, or passkeys.

• Bitcoin Design Community showcases comprehensive Bitcoin wallet UI flows through Muun, Phoenix, OKX, and Padawan, featuring onboarding, backup, Lightning Network, and transaction interfaces for developers and designers.

• Taproot Wizards releases Ordiknots, an experimental Bitcoin data embedding tool that enables storage of arbitrary files up to 242 KB using P2WSH multisig and chained OP_RETURN techniques on Bitcoin Knots nodes.

• GoldenPie showcases a cross-platform RetroArch launcher that combines classic N64 gaming with Bitcoin reward animations and education.

• Amethyst introduces comprehensive follow list management, follow pack creation, and improved video compression with H.265 codec support for enhanced user experience in version 1.04.0.

• NiceHash becomes the first company to offer direct withdrawal of Virgin and Premium BTC with minimal transaction history, previously exclusive to miners.

• Sovereign Engineering announces SEC-06 Identity & Signers cohort applications open for March 2026, exploring cryptographic identities, key management, and Web of Trust leveraging in Bitcoin and Nostr ecosystems.

• Padawan Wallet offers a risk-free bitcoin learning platform using testnet coins, featuring nine practical tutorials for mobile wallet basics including sending, receiving, and wallet management for users of all ages.

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