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Greetings Bitcoiner,
Welcome to Issue #477 of the Bitcoin Breakdown daily newsletter, where we’re 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, today’s Top Stories:
🤖 OpenClaw Bans Bitcoin Talk -- Crypto Did This
🐳 Whales Are Still the Biggest Sellers Even as They Accumulate
⛏️ Bitdeer Sells Every Bitcoin to Chase AI Data Centers
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🤖 OpenClaw Bans Bitcoin Talk -- Crypto Did This
OpenClaw -- the open-source AI framework with 200,000 GitHub stars -- banned all Bitcoin and crypto mentions from its Discord after scammers previously hijacked the project's accounts and launched a fake $CLAWD token to a $16 million market cap. Creator Peter Steinberger confirmed: "no crypto mention whatsoever."
Why it matters: One shitcoin scam now bars a 200,000-star developer community from building on Lightning or referencing Bitcoin block height -- collateral damage in a culture war Bitcoin didn't start. Read more→
In other news...
🐳 Whales Are Still the Biggest Sellers Even as They Accumulate
CryptoQuant's exchange whale ratio hit 0.64 in February -- highest since October 2015 -- meaning large holders drove 64% of all bitcoin inflows to exchanges. Daily inflows peaked at 60,000 BTC on February 6 before falling 60% on a 7-day average.
Why it matters: Whales accumulating and whales selling aren't mutually exclusive. Net Tether inflows to exchanges dropped from $616 million to $27 million -- buy-side dry powder is nearly gone. CryptoQuant's call: limited demand buffers, vulnerable market. Read more→
Shifting to mining...
⛏️ Bitdeer Sells Every Bitcoin to Chase AI Data Centers
Bitdeer Technologies Group cut its bitcoin treasury to zero on February 20, selling the remaining 943.1 BTC. The miner started 2026 with ~2,000 BTC and now sells all output same-week after raising $325 million in notes to fund AI data centers.
Why it matters: TeraWulf, Bitfarms, Riot, and Core Scientific follow the same path. Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment works as intended -- no miner dominates regardless of capital. Efficiency wins; the market enforces it. Read more→
Poll #477: OpenClaw's real problem with Bitcoin is ___
F2pool adds Lightning Network withdrawals, joining four other major mining pools namely Nicehash, Braiins, Ocean and Lincoin in doing the same, as noted by Super Testnet.
Matt Odell, partner at Ten31 and cofounder of OpenSats, questions Matthew Kratter's ethics by revealing his past as head trader at Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital, responding to Kratter's allegation that Odell's BIP-110 opposition is based on protection of business interests.
Iranian citizens facing hyperinflation and a collapsing rial are turning to bitcoin and self-custodial wallets, mirroring Lebanon's 2019 financial crisis where BTC became the primary tool to preserve savings and bypass frozen banking systems.
Missouri's House Bill 2080 advances to the Commerce Committee, proposing state treasurer invest in Bitcoin for up to five years and allowing Bitcoin and crypto tax payments after a similar 2024 bill got stalled.
Malaysian authorities arrest 12 police officers for allegedly extorting $51,000 in crypto from Chinese nationals during a raid near Kuala Lumpur.
CME futures data shows that institutional traders slashed bearish BTC bets, mirroring patterns that preceded a 70% rally in 2025 and 190% gain in 2023.
MARA Holdings, a US bitcoin mining company, acquires 64% of Exaion, a French state-owned EDF data center subsidiary, for $168M under government conditions requiring telecom billionaire Xavier Niel's NJJ Capital to hold 10% stake.
Bitcoin's Fear & Greed Index plummets to extreme fear at 5/100, matching historic lows seen only three times since 2018.
50-year-old Bloomington, Indiana resident loses $7,600 in BTC to a scammer impersonating a Monroe County Sheriff's Office lieutenant who falsely claimed he missed jury duty and demanded bitcoin payment to avoid arrest.
Large Bitcoin holders have accumulated 236K BTC since December 2025, reversing prior sell-off and pushing whale reserves back to pre-October crash levels amid sustained exchange outflows.
Simon Gerovich, CEO of Bitcoin treasury firm Metaplanet, defends the company's disclosure practices amid accusations of hiding $680M losses and key details of leveraged BTC trades from investors.
Bitcoin's 23% decline through the first 50 days of 2026 marks its worst year-to-date performance on record, with consecutive January and February losses unprecedented in its history.
Bitcoin drops over 5% to $64.5K amid whale-driven exchange inflows and six consecutive weekly losses, while institutional buyers like Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and Strategy continue accumulating despite market weakness.
Strategy chairman Michael Saylor hints at the firm's 100th Bitcoin purchase with 717,131 BTC already accumulated since 2020.
Jack Dorsey, head of Block Inc, in a panel interview with Matt Odell, champions the Nostr protocol as the ideal infrastructure for autonomous AI agents due to its censorship-resistant architecture and permissionless data flows (Feb 21 | 1:14 min watch).
Lyn Alden, Bitcoiner, Maro analyst and author of 'Broken Money', in an interview with Natalie Brunell on her podcast, argues that Bitcoin may have bottomed, citing retail investor absence and liquidity signals, while positioning BTC as 'natural money for AI' amid expectations of gradual US money printing rather than aggressive stimulus (Feb 20 | 5:04 min watch).
Bitcoin Straight Up, a Bitcoin education channel, maps five stages of Bitcoin adoption from skeptical normie to self-sovereign monk, while warning that 3M BTC held on exchanges risks repeating gold's failure unless holders embrace self-custody and escape fiat thinking (Feb 18 | 12:35 min watch).
Roland from Alby introduces the Alby Developer Sandbox, a zero-setup testing environment that enables developers to build and test Bitcoin Lightning Network payment applications using test wallets, visual payment scenarios, AI agent integration, and ready-to-use code examples before deploying to production (Feb 16 | 8:04 min watch).
Guy Swann of Bitcoin Audible, in an appearance on BTC Sessions' podcast, argues that the predictable four-year cycle is dead due to increased liquidity from ETFs, and Bitcoin's next major rally will come from actual industry disruption rather than speculative hype, as infrastructure tools mature during this extended consolidation phase (Feb 23 | 15:03 min watch).
Matthew Kratter of Bitcoin University criticizes Matt Odell's rejection of BIP-110 as disingenuous ad hominem arguments, accusing Odell and Marty Bent of avoiding substantive debate while protecting business interests and failing to address Bitcoin's spam crisis or UTXO set bloat (Feb 21 | 10:40 min watch).
Thank you for reading!
