Greetings Bitcoiner,

Welcome to Issue #425 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.

Now for today’s Top Stories:

• 🧹 The Cat Proposal: Bitcoin's Nuclear Option Against Inscriptions

• 🇦🇷 Argentinian Banks Set to Offer Bitcoin Services

• 🚀 CFTC Launches Bitcoin as Collateral in Derivatives Markets

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Dec 9, 2025

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

🧹 The Cat Proposal: Bitcoin's Nuclear Option Against Inscriptions

A controversial new soft fork called 'The Cat' proposes deleting millions of existing UTXOs created by Ordinals and Stamps protocols, targeting what proponents call blockchain bloat. The proposal would permanently blacklist non-monetary outputs, sparking fierce debate over censorship resistance versus network efficiency. Critics warn it violates Bitcoin's core principles by confiscating property and introducing subjective content-based rules. Allegedly censored from official mailing lists, The Cat exposes deep ideological rifts about Bitcoin's purpose: sound money versus permissionless experimentation. The Bitcoin Manual

🇦🇷 Argentinian Banks Set to Offer Bitcoin Services

Argentina's central bank is drafting regulations to let commercial banks offer Bitcoin and crypto trading and custody services by April 2026, reversing a 2022 ban. The move reflects President Javier Milei's push for financial freedom amid years of hyperinflation and currency controls. Banks will operate Bitcoin and crypto services through separate units with strict capital and anti-money laundering requirements. With 10M active wallets and $91B in yearly on-chain transactions, Argentina is touted to Bitcoin as a hedge against peso devaluation. Cryptonews

🚀 CFTC Launches Bitcoin as Collateral in Derivatives Markets

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission just launched a groundbreaking pilot program allowing bitcoin and certain stablecoins to be used as collateral in US derivatives markets. Acting Chair Caroline Pham emphasized 'clear guardrails' for approved futures commission merchants, including strict custody and reporting requirements. The agency also withdrew outdated 2020 guidance that had blocked crypto collateral, following passage of the GENIUS Act. Industry leaders praised the move as a major unlock for Bitcoin and digital assets. CoinDesk

POLL #425

PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS

OPINION & ANALYSIS

• Dimitri-H, a Bitcoin analyst of Bit Block, examines the controversial new soft work proposal called The Cat, that would make non-monetary UTXOs like Ordinals and NFTs permanently unspendable to combat spam, while cautioning that this controversial approach could open doors to censorship despite its anti-spam benefits (Dec 8 | 4 min read). 

• Shanaka Anslem Perera, Author of 'The Ascent Begins', argues that China's restated December 2025 Bitcoin and crypto crackdown represents not permanent exclusion but a calibrated 'gate' for managed integration, citing IMF data showing China as a net stablecoin recipient and highlighting Hong Kong's institutional infrastructure buildout as evidence of strategic monetary sovereignty competition rather than capital flight prevention (Dec 8 | 10 min read).

• Anna Stenstrom of the Bitcoin Policy Institute publishes a report arguing that 529 college savings plans in the US should include bitcoin as an investment option, demonstrating how even 1-2% allocations could significantly improve returns while maintaining risk levels comparable to traditional portfolios, helping families better combat rising tuition costs (Dec 8 | 10 min read).

• MacroJack of the 'Sound Money Sound Life' newsletter argues that Bitcoin's culture war between self-custody maximalists and Wall Street ETF proponents misses the scalable solution of multi-institution custody, which preserves true Bitcoin ownership while removing single points of failure that neither extreme can adequately address for mass adoption (Dec 7 | 7 min read).

• Robert Breedlove, host of the 'What Is Money?' show, traces his intellectual journey from discovering Bitcoin in 2014 to developing 'monopraxialism' -- a philosophical framework arguing that human action is the singular first principle unifying all knowledge, reality, and ethical imperatives, with Bitcoin serving as the ultimate tool for preserving individual agency against coercive monetary systems (Dec 6 | 45 min read).

• Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute argues that despite Fed claims of 'restrictive' policy, US money supply growth has surged to a 40-month high of 4.76% year-over-year, with TMS reaching $20T as accommodative monetary policy contradicts official rhetoric amid worsening economic indicators (Dec 6 | 3 min read).

• Justin Thaler, Research Partner at a16z, argues that quantum computing threats to blockchain cryptography are overstated, urging immediate hybrid encryption deployment against harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks while advocating deliberate migration to post-quantum signatures as implementation bugs pose more urgent risks than distant quantum computers (Dec 5 | 20 min read).

• Car, co-founder and CEO of PlebLab, outlines a practical metrics framework for early-stage Bitcoin startups that focuses on three core questions (weekly growth, sustainable sats flow, and genuine user love) while providing a detailed monthly investor update template for Startup School teams to track proof of work (Dec 5 | 10 min read).

• Andy Greenberg, a senior writer for WIRED, profiles Nicholas Merrill's launch of Phreeli, a privacy-focused phone carrier that requires only a ZIP code for signup and uses zero-knowledge cryptography to separate user identities from their cellular activity, challenging the surveillance practices of major US telecom companies (Dec 4 | 15 min read).

• Erik, lead product designer at Hoseki, explains how his team designed an intuitive hardware wallet connection flow that uses message signing to let Bitcoin holders cryptographically prove ownership without moving funds, focusing on visual cues and security verification for both single-sig and multisig wallets (Dec 4 | 3 min read).

TOOLS & PROJECTS

• New on Geyser: ThamesBTC seeks to create 20 limited-edition Skull of Satoshi table lamps commemorating Ripple's failed Greenpeace campaign against Bitcoin.

• New on Geyser: Machakos Bitcoin Academy, a Kenyan youth education initiative, empowers rural communities with practical Bitcoin skills through hands-on workshops, enabling farmers and youth to achieve financial independence and build local digital economies.

• Antifragile, a nutraceutical stack designed to boost mental stamina, neuroprotection, and stress resilience for Bitcoin enthusiasts, has opened its waitlist.

• Plebs Together Strong, an Indian grassroots Bitcoin initiative, launches a community hub in Goa, India.

• MicroBT, a Bitcoin mining hardware developer, unveils its energy-efficient WhatsMiner M70 series with power efficiency of 12.5J/T, emphasizing renewable energy integration and collaborative partnerships to advance sustainable mining operations.

• Gridless, a Bitcoin mining company, launches the Jua Kali Miner open-source project, enabling African farmers and small industries to monetize excess solar energy through mining operations.

• Take My Sats, a Bitcoin-native e-commerce platform, enables merchants to accept BTC payments directly through Lightning Address, Nostr Wallet Connect, and BTCPay Server integrations without intermediaries or traditional payment fees.

• Node Faker, a browser-based Bitcoin node emulator, retrieves block data from Electrum servers to simulate bitcoind and bitcoin-cli functionality without running a full node.

• Lil Satoshi, an educational app by Unit Matrix, teaches children Bitcoin concepts through Pokemon-style trading cards that parents can create, customize, and print for engaging learning experiences.

• BOSTR, a proof-of-concept tool developed for the Plebfi December 2025 hackathon, uses Nostr protocol and ZMQ to relay Bitcoin transactions between nodes, implementing NIP-85 for decentralized transaction broadcasting.

• Craig Raw, creator of Sparrow Wallet, introduces a BIP aimed at enhancing silent payments and wallet interoperability through a novel top-level script expression, facilitating efficient backup, recovery processes, and transaction streamlining.

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