For weeks, Bitcoiners have complained about collapsing engagement on X, long the home of the online Bitcoin community.
X’s head of product explicitly said crypto wasn’t being suppressed. We were committing suicide by the way we post. Less than 24 hours later, community outrage caused the creators of X’s algorithm to blink.
Other top stories from the week include:
Morgan Stanley joins the party, prepares to issue their own Bitcoin ETF.
Bitchat helps Ugandans stop a dictator from stealing an election.
A bitcoin mining water heater steals the show at CES.
Latest News
Adoption
Rumble launches Rumble Wallet, a self-custodial wallet bringing BTC, USDT, and Tether Gold to millions of users, expanding censorship-resistant payments across one of the world’s largest creator platforms.
Coin Metrics estimates $4.5 trillion moved over the Bitcoin network in 2025 after adjusting for change outputs, averaging $144,000 per second, about double the $2.2 trillion transferred in 2024.
X reveals Smart Cashtags, letting users tag specific assets like Bitcoin, tap to view real-time prices and mentions, and signaling potential in-app trading with self-custodial wallets.
Regulation
A French tax agent was arrested for allegedly leaking crypto investors’ personal data from gov. tax databases to unknown clients, with the breach reportedly linked to a wave of armed home invasions.
U.S. Marshals appear to have sold 57.5 BTC seized in the Samourai Wallet case via Coinbase Prime on Nov. 3, 2025, despite EO 14233 directing forfeited bitcoin to the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Ledger confirms a data breach via third-party payment processor Global-e, exposing customer names, addresses, and more (see our security alert below).
Markets
Morgan Stanley plans to launch its own Bitcoin ETF and enable Bitcoin trading on E*Trade in the first half of 2026, with a proprietary digital wallet expected in the second half.
Bitcoin ETF investors remain resilient. Despite a 36% drawdown in Bitcoin’s price, cumulative ETF inflows are down less than 10% from their October peak.
Raoul Pal says BTC’s repeated sell-offs at market opens stem from exchanges absorbing Oct. 10 flash crash liquidations and now unwinding those positions daily like a programmatic desk.
Treasury
MSCI concludes its review of Digital Asset Treasury index inclusion and decided not to exclude companies holding Bitcoin or other crypto, preserving index eligibility for firms such as MicroStrategy.
American Bitcoin acquires an additional 329 BTC for roughly $30 million, bringing total holdings to 5,427 BTC valued near $505 million, surpassing fellow Bitcoin treasury company NAKA.
Strive acquires 101.8 BTC in Q4 2025 at an average price near $94,525, adding roughly $9.6 million in bitcoin as a shareholder vote on its merger with Semler Scientific approaches Tuesday.
Mining
Canaan launches a 3 MW heat recovery pilot in Manitoba using waste heat from Avalon miners to heat a greenhouse, capturing up to 90% of consumed electricity as usable heat at roughly $0.035 per kWh.
Superheat unveils a 50-gallon electric water heater with integrated ASIC Bitcoin miners that matches standard energy use while generating BTC to offset water heating costs.
Riot Platforms executes its largest monthly Bitcoin sale on record in December, selling about 1,820 BTC for roughly $160 million and reducing holdings to 18,005 BTC to fund its AI build-out.
Politics
Florida introduces legislation to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, allowing up to 10 percent of select public funds to be allocated to BTC and Bitcoin ETFs.
Uganda votes for president this week amid fears of another internet shutdown. Downloads of mesh-network messaging app Bitchat have surged, enabling censorship-resistant communication.
China releases footage of the extradition of crypto scam mastermind Chen Zhi, accused of running a pig-butchering network stealing up to $30 million per day, following his arrest in Cambodia.
Ledger's Third Strike
272,000 Ledger customers just had their home addresses leaked. Again.
That's 272,000 potential wrench attacks.
The Jade Plus takes the opposite approach:
Bitcoin-only (no attack surface from 10,000+ shitcoins).
Air-gapped only (no Bluetooth vulnerabilities).
Same price as Ledger ($150).
Blockstream has been building Bitcoin infrastructure since 2014 while Ledger was chasing NFTs.
Your home address shouldn't be collateral for self-custody.
Join thousands of Bitcoiners who switched from Ledger 🔒
P.S. - Ledger will probably email their users about new 'enhanced security measures' soon. Third time's the charm though, right? 🙄
Bam’s 2 Sats
The System Is Broken
Over the past few weeks, a wave of reports has laid bare extreme government inefficiencies, and in some cases, what looks like outright fraud.
While some cases appear country-specific, it would be naive to think this behavior is isolated. After Somalia-linked fraud uncovered in a Minnesota report, where billions went to fraudulent or nonexistent childcare centers, further analysis suggested nearly $500 billion was wasted from 2018 to 2022, roughly $100 billion per year.
These figures come from the Government Accountability Office, which raises an uncomfortable question: if this is the official number, how much higher is the real one? An order of magnitude?
From a taxpayer’s perspective, reading this kind of news is not just frustrating, it is humiliating.
A large share of our working lives is surrendered to the state, with little transparency or accountability for how that money is used. Even if the waste is incompetence, not corruption, the incentives are clear. Governments are poor capital allocators. What’s free is valued least, and when a money printer exists, it will always be used.
Bitcoin Doesn’t Fix Governments, but It May Fix the People Living Under Them
This, unfortunately, is the system we live under. Perhaps it is the cost of operating in a complex society. I tried to consider how Bitcoin might “fix” this, but the reality is more nuanced.
I do not believe Bitcoin fixes the system. I believe it fixes the individual.
Anecdotally, most Bitcoiners I’ve met develop better financial habits after discovering Bitcoin, and that mindset often spreads outward to friends and family. If lasting change starts internally, this may be Bitcoin’s real impact: fostering personal responsibility.
And perhaps, over time, even politicians may come to appreciate that perspective. After all, they’re human too. And humans can become Bitcoiners.
Happy 2026, stay safe and keep on stacking!
- Bam
Bitcoin Trivia
Who was awarded the Finney Freedom Prize (2016–2020) for educating millions of people about Bitcoin?
This Week on Bitcoin News [Live]
Is the Bitcoin community stronger than ever, or is it being algorithmically pushed into obscurity?
Join us live today as Rob Wallace sits down with Giacomo Zucco, one of Bitcoin’s leading educators, to break it all down.
