Together with
Greetings Bitcoiner,
Welcome to Issue #471 of the Bitcoin Breakdown daily newsletter, where weβre rounding up the most talked-about developments in the Bitcoin-only space from the past weekend with our Quick Bits and Quick Media sections.
But first, todayβs Top Stories:
π·οΈ Pastebin Attack Hijacks Bitcoin Swaps Through Your Browser
π§π· Brazil Files Bill to Stack 1 Million Bitcoin Over Five Years
π BlackRock Exec Says Leverage Makes Bitcoin Trade Like 'Levered NASDAQ'
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π·οΈ Pastebin Attack Hijacks Bitcoin Swaps Through Your Browser
A new ClickFix-style campaign uses Pastebin comments to lure Bitcoin users into pasting malicious JavaScript into their browsers while visiting swap platform Swapzone dot io. The injected code replaces deposit addresses with attacker-controlled wallets and fakes exchange rates to sell the illusion. It's the first known ClickFix attack targeting in-browser web app manipulation rather than OS-level malware.
Why it matters: No malware, no antivirus trigger -- just social engineering and misplaced trust. Stay skeptical of anything promising free money. Build real trust networks at local meetups, not in Pastebin comment sections. Read moreβ
In other news...
π§π· Brazil Files Bill to Stack 1 Million Bitcoin Over Five Years
Brazilian lawmakers reintroduced Bill 4501/2024 proposing RESBit -- a sovereign Bitcoin reserve targeting 1 million BTC via market purchases, seized asset retention, and tax collection in bitcoin. The bill mandates cold storage, multisig custody, and public auditing of holdings.
Why it matters: Another nation-state entering the reserve race is bullish signal, but this is a proposal, not law. Watch for surveillance strings attached to tax-in-bitcoin provisions and mining incentive compliance requirements. Read moreβ
Shifting to markets...
π BlackRock Exec Says Leverage Makes Bitcoin Trade Like 'Levered NASDAQ'
BlackRock digital assets chief Robert Mitchnick warned that perpetual futures leverage is eroding bitcoin's institutional pitch. During a volatile week, IBIT saw just 0.2% redemptions while billions were liquidated on offshore leverage platforms. He acknowledged bitcoin's fundamentals remain strong but said current trading data raises the adoption bar.
Why it matters: Institutions want a tame market. Bitcoin is a free market. Every asset class would look this volatile without circuit breakers and central bank backstops -- that's not a bug, it's what real price discovery looks like. Read moreβ
Pastebin Comments Lured Bitcoin Users To Paste JS On Swapzone. Best Defense?
Square's new bitcoin payment feature drives 50% growth in verified merchants across North Carolina, with over 90 Charlotte businesses now accepting BTC alongside traditional payment methods.
Nikita Bier, π's head of product, confirms that Smart Cashtags will launch in weeks, enabling direct stock, Bitcoin and crypto trading on the timeline as part of Elon Musk's 'everything app' vision for the platform.
Russian Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov reveals that citizens trade 50B rubles ($648M) daily in Bitcoin and crypto through unregulated channels, prompting government push for accelerated market regulation.
Florida federal judge awards Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary $2.8M in default judgment after crypto influencer Ben Armstrong falsely accused him of murder related to 2019 boating accident, adding to Armstrong's mounting legal troubles.
Ramil Ventura Palafox, founder of Praetorian Group International, receives 20-year prison sentence for operating a $201M Ponzi scheme that falsely promised bitcoin and forex returns while defrauding over 90,000 investors globally.
'Killing Satoshi', a new Bitcoin movie starring Pete Davidson and Casey Affleck plans to use AI to create locations and adjust performances, replacing traditional reshoots with digital modifications.
Trump Media and Technology Group, in which President Donald Trump holds a majority ownership stake, files for two new a Bitcoin ETF.
Armed suspects break into Binance France president David Prinçay's Paris apartment, steal phones after finding him absent, then target the wrong victim at a different location before being arrested at Lyon's train station.
Strategy, Michael Saylor's bitcoin treasury company, prepares its 99th BTC purchase in 12 consecutive weeks despite its stock declining in price and its multiple on net asset value falling to 0.90 amid broader market downturn.
Gangnam District police in Seoul, South Korea lose 22 BTC worth $1.5M from cold wallet storage, with funds transferred without physical USB theft, prompting internal investigation.
Blockstream CEO Adam Back warns that BIP-110's attempt to curb Ordinals spam could freeze user funds and damage Bitcoin's credibility, despite 7.5% of nodes signaling support.
Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the US President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, says trillions of dollars in institutional capital await the crypto market structure legislation.
Dante Cook from Simply Bitcoin warns that growing government regulation, Wall Street financialization, and synthetic Bitcoin products through ETFs and derivatives risk creating a manipulated paper market similar to gold and silver, urging viewers to prioritize self-custody and on-chain verification to maintain sovereignty (Feb 16 | 15:03 min watch).
Patriotic Millionaires CEO Erica Payne, in cringe leaked footage speaking at Davos, proposes a global asset registry to track hidden wealth, aggressive progressive taxation on the ultra-rich, and limits on maximum wealth accumulation to curb economic inequality and supposed power imbalances threatening democracy (Feb 13 | 1:30 min watch).
Pierre Rochard of Bitcoin For Corporations, in an interview with Gareth Jenkinson of The Lumen Podcast, defends Strategy's debt-based Bitcoin accumulation strategy as a sustainable institutional adoption model that uses convertible notes to acquire BTC without liquidation risks (Feb 16 | 2:48 min watch).
Hector Alvero, COO of Rhino Bitcoin, examines China's February 6, 2026 regulatory ban on unapproved offshore yuan stablecoins alongside Tether's blacklisting of $2.7B and Circle's $63M freeze, contrasting these centralized control risks with Bitcoin's permissionless architecture for sovereign value storage (Feb 13 | 1:07 min watch).
Matthew Kratter of Bitcoin University addresses common objections to the BIP-110 soft fork by explaining how spam transactions impact Bitcoin's monetary function, node resources, and transaction fees while clarifying that Bitcoin serves as permissionless money rather than permissionless data storage (Feb 12 | 13:23 min watch).
Simon Dixon, a Bitcoin investor and founder of BankToTheFuture, in an interview on BTC Sessions, alleges Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Epstein coordinated a 2014 disinformation campaign to discredit Bitcoin through strategic investments in exchanges, developers, and infrastructure while potentially orchestrating attacks (Feb 16 | 14:23 min watch).
Louis Nel, a South African Bitcoin activist and web developer, speaking at the Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town conference, recounts his multi-year battle exposing the Karatbars and GSB MLM scams - facing a 476M rand defamation lawsuit for warning victims - while advocating for Bitcoin sovereignty as an antidote to fraud in communities devastated by economic desperation (Feb 12 | 20:43 min watch).
