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Greetings Bitcoiner,
Welcome to Issue #696 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:
Core Scientific plans to exit bitcoin mining by year end as Keel sells its $192M treasury and pivots to super intelligence data centers. Chainalysis said password hashes and live tokens for all users were exposed, days after calling the accessed data non-sensitive. Bull Bitcoin made Payjoin the default for on-chain trades, a privacy win.
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⛏️ Core Scientific, Keel and Iren Quit Bitcoin Mining
Core Scientific plans to complete its exit from bitcoin mining by year-end 2026 and become a pure-play colocation provider, after self-mining revenue fell about 79% to $12.3M. Keel Infrastructure, formerly Bitfarms, sold 2,520 bitcoin for $192M in the third quarter while pivoting to super intelligence data centers. Iren aims to substantially complete the same transition by December 31, 2026.
Why it matters: Critics once feared Wall Street money would centralize Bitcoin mining in the US, as if miners were immune to economic constraints. Hashrate will not vanish, and we expect it to migrate toward stranded, cheap energy because mining incentives reward lean operators. Read more→
Meanwhile, a surveillance firm lost control of its data...
🕵️ Chainalysis Admits Hashes and Live Tokens Exposed
Chainalysis said on October 30 that only non-sensitive data such as names and email addresses was accessed, with no evidence of exposed credentials or session tokens. Its November 4 update said names, usernames, password hashes and live tokens for all Chainalysis users were exposed to a malicious actor. Chainalysis has not disclosed whether each type of information was exposed for every user.
Why it matters: The compromise of Chainalysis dents trust in the Bitcoin and crypto surveillance backbone it sells as compliance. Customers who cannot scope their own risk must assume the worst, which shows why privacy and self-custody beat trusting gatekeepers. Read more→
While surveillance stumbled, one exchange made privacy the default...
🔐 Bull Bitcoin Makes Payjoin the Default for Trades
Bull Bitcoin, the Bitcoin-only exchange Francis Pouliot founded in Canada in 2013, becomes the first exchange to offer Payjoin deposits and withdrawals. Every on-chain buy or sell from Bull Wallet through its embedded exchange integration is now a Payjoin by default, with both the customer and Bull Bitcoin contributing inputs. Buyers merge an existing coin with the purchase, which can reduce future fees.
Why it matters: Payjoin makes common input ownership and change output detection heuristics less reliable for anyone surveilling Bitcoin transactions. Landing the same week Chainalysis reported a hack, it signals a win for privacy and a loss for surveillance, protecting self-custody savers without trusting intermediaries. Read more→
Cory Fields, a Bitcoin developer, proposes 'quantum landmines,' a commit/reveal mechanism requiring quantum attackers to post matching collateral before moving vulnerable coins, letting true owners claim both without coin freezes.
BitGo, a custody firm, launches Global Markets, an institutional trading, derivatives, and Bitcoin and crypto-backed lending unit led by Pete Janney after its August acquisition of NYDIG's trading business.
Block, Jack Dorsey's fintech corporation, adds 120 BTC in Q3, raising its treasury to 9,237 BTC.
Strategy sees its Stretch (STRC) preferred regain $100 par for the first time since May after $2.25B in buybacks, reopening its cheapest funding source.
Bitquery, a data platform, finds that hackers drained customer deposit addresses at Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin for four hours after the firm claimed containment of the $48.6M breach.
Eric Trump's Nasdaq-listed miner American Bitcoin Corp posts $126M Q3 profit driven entirely by a $197.3M mark-to-market bitcoin treasury gain while its mining operations lose money.
Exchanges Coinbase, Gate, Upbit and OKX disclose cold storage ratios of 88% to 99% after thieves drained $6.36B from Binance's internet-connected hot wallets last week.
South Korea's government will seek a fourth delay of its 22% Bitcoin and crypto gains tax to 2029, awaiting surveillance data from the US, and proposes a three-year loss carryforward for investors.
Hong Kong passes a law requiring exchanges to collect customer and transaction data from 2027 under the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, sharing it with foreign tax authorities from 2028.
Ukraine's central bank refuses to back a crypto bill cleared for parliamentary vote, warning that 'foreign' tokens acting as electronic money evade oversight and that licensing risks monopolization.
Greece's parliament approves the country's first Bitcoin and crypto tax framework, a 10% capital gains levy on bitcoin and others from 2027, with annual net gains under €500 exempt.
France's National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, rejects the 2027 budget's revenue section, erasing Bitcoin and crypto-related amendments on stablecoin taxes and self-custody reporting that the Senate could still revive.
Vijay Boyapati, author of 'The Bullish Case For Bitcoin', in an interview with Bram Kanstein of Bitcoin for Millennials, argues that Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 discovery of absolute digital scarcity, capped at 21M bitcoin with no controlling founder, makes Bitcoin an uncopyable, once-in-a-lifetime monetary network (Nov 4 | 10:30 min watch).
Cory Klippsten, founder of Swan Bitcoin, explains why the Democratic 'blue tsunami' midterm sweep in the US changes little for Bitcoiners, as Trump appointees still lead the SEC and CFTC, urging holders to focus on self-custody and sound money over Washington's strategic reserve promises (Nov 5 | 6:56 min watch).
Zack Cohen, senior associate at the nonpartisan Bitcoin Policy Institute in the US, in an appearance on BMTV, breaks down what the 2026 midterms mean for bitcoin legislation, saying that the Clarity Act could stall while non-custodial developers stay 'in the clear' as de minimis tax exemption and Strategic Bitcoin Reserve pushes continue (Nov 5 | 16:27 min watch).
Rustin of Simply Bitcoin argues that Democratic control of US Congress creates gridlock and sets the stage for renewed money printing that could push dollars into hard assets like bitcoin (Nov 5 | 14:28 min watch).
Aleksei Moskvin & Markus Schofnegger, researchers behind the [alloc] init project, present Shielded Bitcoin at bitcoin++ Berlin, a metaprotocol enabling Zcash-style private payments on Bitcoin L1 through witness-encrypted pipes, nullifiers and zero-knowledge proofs without soft forks or trusted operators (Oct 23 | 39:56 min watch).
ForrestHODL, a Bitcoin educator and YouTuber, walks viewers through setting up virtual machines on Umbrel 2.0, showing how to launch preset operating systems like Windows 7 and Omarchy Linux, allocate CPU, RAM and storage, and upload custom OS images such as Superbacked OS (Nov 5 | 10:24 min watch).
