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Greetings Bitcoiner,
Welcome to Issue #603 of Bitcoin Breakdown, where every Tuesday and Thursday, we bring you the latest must-read Bitcoin thought leadership articles and the newest tools and projects you should know about. But first, today’s Top Stories:
Today’s issue follows Bitcoin from the block race to the legislative chamber. Parasite Pool recorded two blocks within roughly three days, while Russia’s State Duma prepared to consider a cross-border trade bill. Vietnam also set new fines for unlicensed platforms, although direct wallet-to-wallet trades remain unspecified.
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?
On Tuesday, July 21 at 1:00 p.m. ET, Casa’s Cristobal Gavaldon and Houston Morgan will show how to remove single points of failure, build a private self-custodial inheritance plan, and defend against social-engineering attacks.
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.
⛏️ Parasite Pool Records Two Blocks in Three Days
SoloBlocks records Parasite Pool finding block 958,212 on July 15 and block 958,527 on July 18. The two identified Bitcoin blocks landed within roughly three days, giving miners a concrete recent result without promising a repeatable pace.
Why it matters: Specific Bitcoin block numbers and timestamps beat vague pool promotion. Miners can credit the two finds while still judging Parasite Pool on sustained performance and transparent terms. Read more→
🇷🇺 Russia's Trade Bill Reaches Final Readings
Russia's State Duma was scheduled to consider bill 1194918-8 in second and third readings on July 21. If approved, it would create rules for investors and a framework including cross-border Bitcoin and crypto trade operations.
Why it matters: The proposal recognizes cross-border utility while domestic Bitcoin and crypto payments remain illegal. Bitcoiners should closely watch the vote, not celebrate an unpassed law. Read more→
🇻🇳 Vietnam's $1,900 Platform Fine Leaves P2P Unclear
Vietnam's Decree 284 fines investors up to 50 million dong, about $1,900, for trading through unlicensed platforms from September 1. Reporting does not specify whether a private wallet-to-wallet trade falls within the same rule.
Why it matters: Vietnam can regulate licensed intermediaries, but Bitcoin settles without one. Users still need a precise answer on direct peer-to-peer trades before the decree takes effect. Read more→
Poll #603: Will Russia settle cross-border trade in bitcoin by year-end?
Printer, a 3d printing enthusiast, in an article on Nostr, argues that BIP-110 chain split risks make Bitcoin backend choice critical, urging LN users to stay online, avoid mass channel closures, monitor miner signaling, and protect sats by tracking the economic chain (Jul 19 | 12 min read).
Marty Bent of TFTC explains why the $150 open-source Bitaxe ASIC miner matters less as a profit tool than as a solo-mining lottery ticket, education device, and way to decentralize Bitcoin hashrate away from dominant pools (Jul 19 | 9 min read).
Dathon Pwn, a Bitcoin researcher, publicly discloses BlockSlop, a BIP 110 consensus bug that can leave late-upgraded Bitcoin nodes on different chains by trusting old chainstate instead of revalidating history under new rules (Jul 18 | 7 min read).
Susie Violet Ward, CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin Policy UK, explains how Hussain v Fix tests whether English courts can enforce BTC-denominated debt, exposing tension between recognizing bitcoin as property and converting contractual obligations into Pound sterling for judgment (Jul 18 | 7 min read).
COLDCARD, a Bitcoin hardware wallet maker, argues that offline phones and laptops are not true cold storage, explaining why purpose-built signing devices, PSBT verification, secure elements, reproducible firmware, and multisig offer stronger bitcoin custody (Jul 17 | 10 min read).
Bey Wallet, in an article on Nostr, argues that Bitcoin needs everyday payment tools using Cashu, Lightning, Nostr, zaps and NFC so that it evolves beyond cold-storage HODLing into private, peer-to-peer digital cash for daily use (Jul 15 | 4 min read).
Jason Hughes, VP of Development and Engineering at OCEAN mining, warns miners that BIP-110 is not inevitable, lacks consensus across nodes and hashrate, risks a chain split near block 961632, and requires vigilant, data-driven signaling decisions (Jul 15 | 8 min read).
Farida Bemba Nabourema, Togolese activist and Africa Bitcoin Conference convener, argues that Africa’s Bitcoin ecosystem faces a credibility crisis as performative NGO-style projects, weak accountability, and deceptive fundraising undermine real adoption, monetary sovereignty, and lasting financial liberation (Jul 14 | 7 min read).
Cubist_Roy, a Bitcoin developer, in a post on Delving Bitcoin, reports a working SuperScalar implementation that uses MuSig2, Taproot and pseudo-Spilman Lightning channel factories to scale self-custodial clients, while highlighting signet results, security defenses and mainnet audit requirements (Jul 13 | 9 min read).
Bitshala, a Bitcoin developer education organization, explains how Braidpool decentralizes Bitcoin mining with DAG-based beads, committed mempools, local transaction selection, MEV-resistant ordering, and a 6-stage confirmation pipeline designed to reduce pool censorship and restore miner autonomy (Jul 13 | 16 min read).
Coin Center, a Bitcoin and crypto policy think tank, launches Peer-to-Peer, a publication aiming to cover surveillance, censorship, license plate tracking, debanking, and open source privacy tools worldwide.
Breez, a bitcoin wallet developer, partners with Turnkey, an embedded wallet infrastructure provider, to let backend-run apps offer self-custodial Bitcoin wallets without holding private keys.
AtlasPool, a Bitcoin mining pool, launches Stratum Race in collaboration with developer ProofOfMike, a live leaderboard tracking how fast pools send new block templates to miners after each block.
bLIP 73 is a Lightning Network protocol proposal that lets nodes query peers directly for payment paths using real channel balance data instead of gossip.
CypherESIM, a privacy-focused travel eSIM startup, launches no KYC Bitcoin payments for mobile data in 180+ countries, with Lightning support coming soon.
Freeport, a peer-to-peer marketplace built on Nostr, launches Lightning payments via Breez SDK, letting users trade goods without servers or middlemen.
BTCDash is a free, ad-free Bitcoin dashboard that pulls live data from 30+ APIs like mempool(dot)space, Binance, and CoinMetrics for fee, mining, and Lightning metrics.
Hashboard, an open source app letting a Bitcoin ASIC miner double as a space heater on Umbrel or StartOS, needs a new name after conflicting with an existing commercial product.
Oli, creator of block-dn(dot)org, launches browser-based Silent Payments scanning using compact filters, cutting data needs for privacy-focused wallet users on Bitcoin's network.
Clams, a Bitcoin accounting startup, launches v1 of their product offering local-first, double-entry bookkeeping that tracks wallet transfers and preserves cost basis, priced at $199 per year.
Braiins, a bitcoin mining firm, partners with Enel North America to launch Energy Intelligence, letting miners monetize flexible load via fixed SaaS demand response.
