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Greetings Bitcoiner,
Welcome to Issue #602 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:
FTX is preparing a $900 million creditor distribution and warning about phishing, while Foundry asks mining clients to weigh BIP-110 through hashrate. Michael Saylor enters the same Bitcoin protocol debate by defending neutral rules, hard consensus, and conservative base-layer policy while arguing that the proposal should be rejected.
Getting your bitcoin off an exchange is step one. Relying on one hardware wallet can still leave your security, recovery, and inheritance plan dependent on a single device.
If it were lost, damaged, or stolen tonight, could you recover your bitcoin, and would anyone you trust know what to do if you could not?
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The free 60-minute webinar includes a live conversation and Q&A about choosing the right level of security for your setup. Self-custody is only as strong as the recovery plan behind it.
💸 FTX's $900 Million Cash Answer Falls Short
FTX scheduled approximately $900 million in creditor payments for July 31, its fifth distribution. The round follows a $2.2 billion March repayment and would push total creditor and claimant payouts near $10 billion since distributions began in 2025.
Why it matters: Cash can settle a bankruptcy claim without restoring the bitcoin exposure customers lost. The estate's warning about phishing and fake claims websites also shows how custody failure keeps generating new risks. Read more→
⛏️ Foundry Lets Client Hashrate Decide BIP-110
Foundry is asking mining pool clients to vote on BIP-110, with ballots weighted by average 10-day hashrate. The largest pool will signal Yes only above 51% support, and every non-response counts as a No vote.
Why it matters: A published threshold connects Foundry's signal to miners routing work through the pool. The vote cannot decide Bitcoin's rules, but it makes one powerful pool's coordination process visible. Read more→
🛡️ Michael Saylor Makes His Case Against BIP-110
Michael Saylor called for Bitcoin to reject BIP-110 and remain conservative at the base layer. He argued that Bitcoin's neutral rules and hard consensus contain disagreement, rather than requiring every participant to agree on every use.
Why it matters: Saylor's intervention brings a corporate Bitcoin voice into a debate often centered on miners and developers. His balance sheet can amplify an argument, but it cannot replace broad consent to change Bitcoin's rules. Read more→
Strategy adds $225M to its cash reserve, leaving its total USD holdings at $3.2B while total Bitcoin holdings are at 843,775 BTC.
Ocean Mining VP Jason Hughes argues that BIP-110, a proposed Bitcoin soft fork targeting OP_RETURN data, remains far from consensus, with miner signaling below 1% ahead of block 961632.
Ed Dowd, former BlackRock portfolio manager, warns that the $2.5T private credit market mirrors pre-2008 subprime as BlackRock, Apollo, and Blackstone gate pension-backed fund redemptions.
SBI Holdings, a major Japanese financial services firm, acquires a majority stake in Coinhako, a Singapore exchange, after gaining approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Rotterdam court in Netherlands declares Dutch platform Knaken bankrupt after prosecutors report 7M euros ($8M) in missing customer assets amid an investigation.
KaleidoSwap, an RGB and Lightning market maker, demonstrates RGB assets running natively on Blockstream's Liquid sidechain.
South Korea's Financial Services Commission, the nation's top financial regulator, reveals that it is probing 40 crypto manipulation cases since the 2024 Virtual Asset User Protection Act, referring 30 for prosecution.
The Bank of Korea, South Korea's central bank, plans to launch phase two of Project Hangang, its wholesale CBDC pilot, by September.
AMBOSS, a Lightning Network analytics and node management platform, reports that its routing nodes now process over 75 BTC monthly, signaling growing Lightning adoption.
Bitcoin Japan, a Tokyo-listed firm holding zero BTC, approves a $59.5M convertible bond and warrant deal with EVO Fund, allocating just $4.1M toward its first bitcoin purchase.
Kaspersky, a cybersecurity firm, uncovers 'OkoBot,' new malware targeting users via fake GitHub apps, stealing wallet files and credentials since January 2026.
South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service begins sanctioning Dunamu, Upbit's operator, over last November's $30M Solana asset hack, with penalty scope still unclear under current law.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs attract $273M in two weeks, ending an eight-week, $8B outflow streak, though analysts call the recovery statistically thin.
Hummingbird: The Bitcoin Jungle Story is a Bitcoin documentary that traces Uvita, Costa Rica's farmers market adopting bitcoin while exploring IMF debt colonialism, fiat inflation, and the eagle-condor prophecy of unity (Jul 18 | 76:13 min watch).
Rob Wallace of Bitcoin News and Gary of BitcoinMentor conduct a NYC street experiment offering strangers free bitcoin via Lightning wallets, revealing rising curiosity alongside persistent confusion about Bitcoin (Jul 14 | 2:29 min watch).
Jimmy Song, Bitcoin educator and developer, speaking at BTC Prague 2026, argues that Bitcoin's real centralization risk lies not in mining pool concentration but in blind trust placed in a small group of Core developers whose code powers over 90% of nodes (Jul 20 | 19:49 min watch).
Fernando Nikolic, founder of narrative-intelligence platform Perception, in an interview with Rob Wallace of Bitcoin News, highlights how AI analysis of Michael Saylor's tweets since 2020 reveals a deliberately engineered pivot from 'Bitcoin maxi' rhetoric to pro-credit, pro-Stretch messaging (Jul 16 | 31:25 min watch).
Naomi Brockwell, privacy advocate and founder of NBTV, argues that as Barlow's 1996 Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace turns 30, true digital independence now requires decentralization and encryption to reclaim privacy from government surveillance (Jul 18 | 23:29 min watch).
Niko Jilch, host of Was Bitcoin bringt podcast, speaking at BTC Prague 2026, explains why bitcoin's price isn't a bubble but rather Mises' regression theorem unfolding live, as Pizza Day gives bitcoin its first reference price and begins its evolution into a monetary good (Jul 16 | 18:27 min watch).
Thank you for reading!
