Greetings Earthling,

Welcome to issue #44 of the Bitcoin Breakdown, where we appreciate that Bitcoin is accelerating legacy institutions into vying for the fealty of sovereign individuals.

In this week’s Top Stories edition:

• 🇦🇷 Pro-Bitcoin Javier Milei wins Argentina's presidential election

• 🌐 Strike now offers BTC buying features to users in 36 countries

• ⛏️ Tether significantly expands BTC mining operations in Latin America

• 🔍 Revisiting The Sovereign Individual - deflation (an not inflation) will now kick in globally

• 🏦 CoinCenter report: Is the Bank Secrecy Act Unconstitutional?

• 🐛 Unciphered Report: US$1 Billion in old Bitcoin wallets vulnerable to exploits

• 🧩 Another Fidelity report: understanding proof-of-work

• 🔗 Blockstream on Bitcoin’s layered design: the key to greater utility

• ❌ How to exit X to social network sovereignty

• 📜 What is the Bitcoin travel rule?

Please leave us a positive review here (where you’ll be rewarded 500 sats for free). Happy readings! 👽️

📰 HEADLINES

Pro-Bitcoin Javier Milei wins Argentina's presidential election, pledging economic ‘shock therapy’ to fix an economy battered by triple-digit inflation, a looming recession and rising poverty.

While his opponent wanted to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to ‘solve’ Argentina’s prolonged inflation crisis, Milei refers to the central bank as a ‘scam’.

The self-described anarcho-capitalist describes Bitcoin as ‘representing the return of money to its original creator, the private sector,’ and that ‘it prevents politicians from robbing you through inflation.’

Milei promises to slash the size of the government, dollarize the economy and eliminate the central bank as a way to tackle galloping inflation that he blames on successive governments printing money indiscriminately in order to fund public spending.

Milei's presidency represents a potential shift towards greater economic freedom, market deregulation, and a smaller government role in the economy. Such changes, however, often come with challenges and risks, especially in a context as complex as Argentina's​.

Strike, Jake Mallers’ Bitcoin app company, expands its services by introducing bitcoin buying capabilities to its global wallet users in 36 countries. This development is part of a broader plan to extend these services to over 65 markets.

In addition, Strike is collaborating with Bitrefill, a crypto payments firm. This partnership leverages the Lightning Network, a secondary payment layer of Bitcoin, enabling customers to effortlessly pay for goods and services.

Tether, the company behind the USDT, is significantly boosting its presence in the BTC mining sector with a substantial investment of $500 million.

The plan, announced by incoming CEO Paolo Ardoino, includes setting up new BTC mining facilities in Uruguay, Paraguay, and El Salvador. The expansion aims to contribute up to 1% of the total computing power in BTC mining.

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🏆 TOP STORIES

It's Deflation, Not Inflation - via The Sovereign Individual (Nov 12 | 4 min read)

@blocktock lifts relevant passages from the seminal The Sovereign Individual arguing that deflation (an not inflation) will kick in now as governments are increasingly forced to compete for the fealty of sovereign individuals. The passages are lifted to outline a timeline of stages, including a clear political vision for sovereign individuals, a looming fiscal crisis, spikes in real interest rates, challenges to currency monopolies by governments, covert actions to limit travel, the impact on debtors, reduced consumption, potential hyperinflation in low-tech regions, efforts to enforce tax cartels, and the significance of digital signatures in cyber debts. All-in-all, a prolonged deflationary period is predicted, particularly affecting high-cost economies with a shift towards austerity, and it is suggested that traditionally poorer countries might experience accelerated economic growth.

Is the Bank Secrecy Act Unconstitutional? (Nov 15 | 104 min read)

Peter Van Valkenburgh (research director: CoinCenter) published a paper highlighting the likely unconstitutionality of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the legal foundation of much of the US’s ‘anti-money laundering’ regulation. The report argues that the BSA is either (A) so broad as to criminalize everyday life, (B) so ambiguous as to make uncertain its application to millions of Americans, or (C) spared from being so broad or so ambiguous by the exercise of legislative authority delegated by Congress to the Treasury Department. Each of these alternative interpretations of the Bank Secrecy Act raises substantial constitutional concerns.

Report: US$1 Billion in Old Bitcoin Wallets Vulnerable to Exploits (Nov 14 | 12 min read)

Unciphered, a crypto recovery firm, identified a vulnerability, labelled ‘Randstorm,’ in browser-based cryptocurrency wallets, affecting BitcoinJS wallets used between 2011 and 2015. This flaw, linked to JavaScript library functions, places millions of wallets, valued over $1 billion, at risk. The firm, which discovered the issue while helping a Blockchain.com customer, is coordinating disclosures to protect affected users. They're withholding full details to prevent aiding attackers, aiming to give wallet owners time to secure their funds. The Washington Post also covered the story.

Another Fidelity Report: Understanding Proof-of-Work (Nov 15 | 60 min read)

Fidelity, one of the world's largest asset managers, released another Bitcoin-focussed report this week; this time focussing on a nontechnical introduction to BTC mining and its implications for investors. Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism is a key innovation in computer science, crucial for its network's decentralized operation as it ensures agreement across the network without needing a central authority. By linking the digital to the physical through real-world resources like electricity and computing power, it not only adds value to Bitcoin but also solidifies its status as a reliable digital commodity. This approach distinguishes Bitcoin from proof-of-stake systems, enhancing its security and making it one of the most robust digital monetary assets in the market.

Bitcoin’s Layered Design: The Key to Greater Utility (Nov 13 | 3 min read)

Jeff Boortz, Chief Product Officer at Blockstream, explores Bitcoin's layered design and its significance in driving utility. Essentially, constraints on the base layer maintain security and decentralization, the middle layer improves scalability, and top layers enhances utility. Just like Jeff Booth in his seminal ‘Finding Signal In A Noisy World’ piece, Boortz uses the analogy of the Internet's design to explain the concept, arguing that each layer offers unique advantages in terms of functionality, security, or accessibility. This design approach of emphasizing enhancing Bitcoin through upper layers rather than changing the base layer, solidifies Bitcoin's position as a reliable, decentralized digital currency with improved scalability and efficiency in terms of transaction speed and cost.

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📖 GUIDES & EXPLAINERS

How to Exit X to Social Network Sovereignty (Nov 18 | 10 min read)

Jameson Lopp, CTO of Casa, wrote a step by step guide for migrating your X / Twitter account and history to nostr. He shares various steps, tools and methods enabling you to set up a nostr client, set up a reliable relay, and eventually to import all your historical tweets and notes. He also highlights the trade-off between convenience and privacy, asserting that the drive for sovereignty may involve inconveniences and challenges. To manage these issues, he proposes creating digital personas for different aspects of life, using prosaic security practices, and adapting to changing technologies.

What is the Bitcoin Travel Rule? (Nov 15 | 8 min read)

The Bitcoin Manual discusses the Bitcoin travel rule, officially known as the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) Recommendation 16. This rule, adopted in 2019, requires virtual asset service providers (VASPs) like exchanges and wallet providers to exchange customer information for transactions above a certain threshold, aiming to enhance transparency and combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The rule is seen as a significant compliance milestone but also a setback for Bitcoin privacy and financial freedom. Its enforcement could lead to increased operational costs for exchanges, potentially driving up fees and making P2P markets more attractive.

💥 MEME BREAK

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Thank you for reading!

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Until our next transmission,

Naiw

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