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Greetings Bitcoiner,
Welcome to Issue #481 of Bitcoin Breakdown, where we’re bringing you your end-of-week Bitcoin Digest featuring all the need-to-know Quick Bits snippets and Quick Media.
But first, today’s Top Stories:
🤖 Block Fires 4,000 -- AI Gets the Win, Fiat Is To Blame
🏦 Wall Street's Two Biggest Banks Are Moving Into Bitcoin
⚖️ Indiana Bitcoin Bill Clears Both Chambers -- ATM Kiosks Banned
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🤖 Block Fires 4,000 -- AI Gets the Win, Fiat Is To Blame
Block Inc cut 40% of its workforce on February 26, dropping from 10,000 to under 6,000. Jack Dorsey cited AI as the driver. Shares jumped 20%+ after hours.
Why it matters: AI is getting the credit -- fiat money's incentive architecture is the real cause. Persistent debasement forces corporations to squeeze margins and reward shareholders over workers. Under a Bitcoin standard, productivity gains would be celebrated, not feared. Read more→
In other news...
🏦 Wall Street's Two Biggest Banks Are Moving Into Bitcoin
Morgan Stanley plans to launch spot crypto on E-Trade and build a native custody and exchange platform. Citi outlined a three-pronged Bitcoin custody plan at Strategy World. Both are top 10 US banks.
Why it matters: What began as ETF positioning is now turning into full-service infrastructure. Two of America's biggest banks are building the custody, wallet, and trading rails for institutional Bitcoin access -- not just paper exposure. The Bitcoinization of finance is no longer a thesis. Read more→
On the regulatory front...
⚖️ Indiana Bitcoin Bill Clears Both Chambers -- ATM Kiosks Banned
Indiana's HB 1042 passed both chambers on February 25, awaiting Governor Mike Braun's signature. The bill codifies self-custody protections, bans discriminatory crypto taxes, and lets state pension funds offer digital asset investment options. A separate provision bans crypto ATM kiosks statewide.
Why it matters: Good protections on self-custody and tax parity -- but the Department of Financial Institutions retains an enforcement carve-out worth watching. State-level Bitcoin legislation is always a mixed bag that rewards scrutiny. Read more→
Poll #481: Citi says it wants to "make Bitcoin bankable." The quiet part:
Block 937404 marks Bitcoin's first BIP 54 (Great Consensus Cleanup) compatible block, using locktime to permanently resolve the duplicate coinbase transaction ID problem.
Strategy becomes the most-shorted stock among global equities valued above $25B in market capitalization, with 14% of its $41.6B float sold short.
AFP fact-checkers debunk a fabricated email falsely claiming Jeffrey Epstein invented Bitcoin under the 'Satoshi Nakamoto' pseudonym, citing formatting errors and satirical intent.
Google Trends data shows that 'buy bitcoin' searches hit a 5-year high as BTC dropped from its October 2025 peak, with retail interest, whale accumulation, and macro tailwinds converging.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell sues Bitcoin Depot over $10M in Bitcoin and crypto ATM scams, joining similar legal actions from Iowa and DC attorneys general targeting the operator.
K33 Head of Research Vetle Lunde says LEO token's 60% premium above implied fair value signals market anticipation of resolution for 94,636 BTC tied to the 2016 Bitfinex hack.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart reveals that bitcoin ETF holders offloaded over 20,098 BTC worth of shares in Q4 2025, based on 13F filings data.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs record $506.5M in single-day inflows on Feb. 25 led by BlackRock's IBIT, after five weeks of outflows, as BTC's price rebounds.
Public Bitcoin miners liquidate $348M in BTC reserves as rising power costs, weak hashprice, and post-halving margin pressure transform treasuries into working capital.
GD Culture Group (GDC), a Nevada-based AI and live-streaming e-commerce firm, approves sale of 7,500 BTC, valued at ~$510M, to fund a $100M share buyback.
South Korean police arrest two suspects linked to A Coin Foundation for stealing 22 BTC, worth approximately $1.5M, seized in 2021 amid a corruption-tainted chain of custody breach.
MARA Holdings, a leading bitcoin miner, partners with Starwood Digital Ventures to convert select US mining sites into AI data centers, targeting 2.5GW of computing capacity.
Marty Bent of TFTC and Ten31 argues that Jack Dorsey's historic 40% Block workforce cut (eliminating 4,000+ jobs amid a 25% stock surge) signals an AI-driven wave of corporate layoffs (Feb 27 | 20:18 min watch).
Simply Bitcoin alleges that Jane Street's alleged 'short and smash' trading strategy and the structural mechanics of BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF are suppressing BTC price discovery, even as Morgan Stanley, Citi, and other institutions rush to offer Bitcoin custody and trading services (Feb 27 | 24:41 min watch).
Mark Moss, a Bitcoin investor and venture capital partner, argues that AI is commoditizing software 'moats,' potentially forcing trillions in institutional capital to rotate toward BTC as the only scarce growth asset structurally immune to AI-driven multiple compression (Feb 25 | 15:46 min watch).
Swan Bitcoin examines whether Jane Street manipulated BTC prices via rehypothecation and synthetic supply, concluding that while paper claims amplify sell-offs, self-custody remains the only true defense against Wall Street's financialization games (Feb 27 | 18:45 min watch).
The Sat Stacker Show, a Bitcoin education channel, argues that Bitcoin's proof-of-work mechanism (rooted in Adam Back's 1997 Hashcash concept) could serve as a neutral, decentralized cost layer to combat AI-driven spam and preserve a human-usable internet (Feb 24 | 12:15 min watch).
Michael Saylor, in an interview with Natalie Brunell of Coin Stories podcast, dismisses BIP-110 supporters' spam concerns, arguing that Bitcoin's history of surviving similar threats undermines fears over unchecked non-monetary data (Feb 24 | 3:28 min watch).
Jack Mallers, CEO of Twenty One Capital and Strike, argues that AI-driven deflation will force central banks to print money, positioning BTC as a liquidity-sensitive 'early warning system' and the hardest asset to benefit from the next monetary expansion triggered by a potential 2026 AI-credit crisis (Feb 24 | 1:23 min watch).
