Happy Monday Bitcoiners - it’s Bam with another weekly update!
Each week, we condense the most impactful news releases into a concise, easy-to-read update so you’re always in the know!
Newsworthy events this week include 👇
Block hits the streets to push for no cap gains on everyday BTC payments.
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund triples its BTC bet.
Chinese mining chips face sharp new scrutiny from the US government.
Let’s dive in ⚡
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Latest News 📰
🙌 Adoption
Pick’n Pay, a South African retail grocery store chain with over 2,200 stores, is reportedly processing about $80,000 per month in Bitcoin Lightning payments, with usage up approximately 44 % since March.
Rumble has begun testing Rumble Wallet for Android users, now supporting Bitcoin, USDT, and XAUT. The goal is a simple, gas-free experience that enables native Bitcoin tipping for creators and streamers.
Block launches a public push for a de minimis tax exemption on everyday bitcoin payments, giving out free coffee in D.C. and launching a site to help people email their representatives in support.
⚖️ Legal
Kent Halliburton, CEO of Sazmining, says he was scammed out of about $220,000 in Bitcoin this summer in a sophisticated confidence scheme that passed every due diligence check until the funds vanished.
Brink sponsors the first public third-party security audit of Bitcoin Core by Quarkslab, which found no critical, high, or medium issues and only minor low-severity and informational recommendations.
Rep. Warren Davidson introduces the Bitcoin for America Act, codifying the SBR exec. order, allowing federal taxes to be paid in BTC without cap. gains, and requiring federal bitcoin holdings be kept for 20 years.
📈 Markets
Abu Dhabi Investment Council has more than tripled its stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, lifting its position to nearly 8 million shares worth about $518 million as of September.
IBIT posts a record $523 million single-day outflow on Tuesday and about $3.3 billion in outflows this month, roughly 3.5% of AUM, despite year-to-date inflows still exceeding an “astronomical” $25 billion.
Empery Digital’s CEO is questioning whether JPMorgan is trying to force MSTR’s price lower via a coordinated attack after the bank raised its margin requirement on the stock from 50% to 95%.
🏦 Treasury
Saylor pushes back on MSCI index delisting concerns, saying Strategy is an operating software company using BTC as productive capital, not a passive vehicle, and that no fund could replicate its model.
Metaplanet is raising $150 million through its new Mercury preferred share offering with a 4.9% dividend and 1:1 ¥1,000 conversion, enabling non-dilutive capital raising at a premium.
Fidelity research shows nearly every major treasury company has paused Bitcoin purchases in Q4, leaving Strategy as the only consistent corporate buyer and helping explain the recent weakness in BTC price.
⛏️ Mining
Bitmain is under a U.S. national security probe after agents found its rigs operating near military and energy sites, triggering chip-level inspections for hidden remote access and raising the risk of import restrictions.
Bitcoin hashprice has fallen to its lowest level in a decade, as record mining difficulty and an all-time high network hashrate collide with minimal transaction fees, sharply compressing miner revenue.
A solo miner running a Bitaxe Gamma appears to have solved the 308th solo block on ckpool, earning 3.08349744 BTC, roughly a 1-in-180-million chance per block, or about 1-in-1.2-million per day.
🗳️ Politics
El Salvador accumulates an additional 1,098 Bitcoin, bringing its total holdings to 7,474 BTC, despite IMF loan restrictions tied to the country’s Bitcoin policies.
New Hampshire approves the first Bitcoin-backed municipal bond, a $100M issue collateralized with BTC at 160% with automatic liquidation near 130%, sending gains to the state’s BTC Economic Dev. Fund.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was spotted at the opening of Pubkey’s second location in Washington, DC, the city’s new outpost of America’s premier Bitcoin bar.
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🧠 Bitcoin Trivia 🧠
Bam’s 2 Sats 🧢
Bitcoin Drops, Conviction Gets Tested
Bitcoin took a beating this week. The slide continued right from Monday’s open until price finally closed the CME gap it left a couple of months ago after breaking out of the post-Liberation Day lows.
CME gaps happen when Bitcoin makes a sharp weekend move while the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is closed, creating an empty zone between Friday’s futures close and Sunday night’s spot action.
Traders watch these levels closely because, more often than not, Bitcoin gravitates back to fill them. It’s not guaranteed, but history has been rhyming a lot lately.
The gap sat near $92,000, but instead of stopping there, a perfect Black Friday style discount for some, Bitcoin kept falling. The drop almost pushed us below $80,000.
In a single move, the market erased the entire year’s gains and sent us back to levels we last saw last November when the post election rally was just beginning.
Naturally, sentiment collapsed. Traders dusted off the four year cycle script, declaring the bull run finished and calling for a long downturn ahead.
The fear and greed index even dropped below its FTX era lows, marking the longest stretch of extreme fear in Bitcoin’s history.
Personally, I find it hard to believe Bitcoin moves in a perfectly predictable pattern or that four-year cycles are some kind of natural law.
Yet traders and influencers are calling for a deeper drawdown, with targets as low as $40,000 based on the so-called cycle lows baked into that theory.
It’s funny how Bitcoin just moves, volatile and indifferent, and people immediately crumble and start treating price prophecies like gospel.
Some of the same voices who argue fiat is infinite and immoral, who warn about government overreach, are suddenly talking about protecting their wealth by selling their Bitcoin for dollars.
The irony is impossible to miss. Bitcoin exists to protect wealth from confiscation and debasement, yet the moment price swings, people run back to the very system they claim to reject.
In my view, these are some of the best moments to be a Bitcoiner. They test conviction and create some of the strongest stacking opportunities we will ever get. Years from now, people will look back at sub-$100,000 Bitcoin as one of those ‘you were lucky to be there’ moments.
Even if price hands us an even bigger discount as the real Black Friday approaches, it’s worth remembering the real fight. The opponent isn’t volatility. It’s the money printer. It’s the unelected power to create what everyone else spends their lives working for.
And before I go, here’s a small glimpse of the plans being drawn up by those closest to those global money printers. Personally, I choose to opt out of that system.
by Kobeissi
Stay safe and keep on stacking!
-Bam
Weekly Live Stream 🚨
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