Lightning Network focused startup Bottlepay has raised $15.5M in seed round. The company is now valued at over $70M.

https://www.coindesk.com/bottlepay-a-payments-startup-that-lets-you-send-bitcoin-on-social-media-raises-11m
archive: https://archive.vn/coANU

Stephan Livera Podcast - SLP254 Dario Sneidermanis Muun Wallet

- Muun as a single unified bitcoin + lightning balance
- A different approach with mnemonics and backups
- Lightning and channel management
- Splicing
- Use in Argentina and elsewhere around the world

https://anchor.fm/stephan-livera/episodes/SLP254-Dario-Sneidermanis-Muun-Wallet-Bitcoin--Lightning-All-In-One-eqt3se

Blockstream Green adds end to end encryption to protect wallet metadata

> Since your data is encrypted with your recovery phrase, the Blockstream Green servers cannot know what’s inside it. Our implementation goes further, also preventing the service from maliciously modifying or presenting an old version of the blob without your wallet detecting it and warning you.

https://blockstream.com/2021/02/23/en-gain-privacy-with-the-encrypted-blob/
archive: https://archive.vn/gC84y

Square Quarterly Q42020 Earnings

- CashApp users bought $4.57 billion bitcoin this year
- Square also bought 3318 bitcoin for its own reserves at a cost of $170M
- Combined with their previous purchase of 4709 bitcoin they now have roughly 5% of their total cash in bitcoin

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1512673/000119312521052320/d128971dex991.htm
archive: https://archive.vn/3EBSP

MicroStrategy has purchased an additional ~19,452 bitcoin for ~$1.026 billion in cash at an average price of ~$52,765 per bitcoin. As of 2/24/2021, they hold ~90,531 bitcoin acquired for ~$2.171 billion at an average price of ~$23,985 per bitcoin.

https://www.microstrategy.com/en/investor-relations/press/microstrategy-acquires-additional-19452-bitcoins-for-1-026-billion_02-24-2021
archive: https://archive.vn/4j1I3

Bitcoin Optech #137

- discussion about choosing activation parameters for a taproot
- questions & answers from the Bitcoin StackExchange
- changes to Bitcoin infrastructure software

https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2021/02/24/
archive: https://archive.vn/Z818q

LOT=true Or LOT=false? This Is The Last Hurdle Before Taproot Activation

> The code for Taproot, a proposed Bitcoin protocol upgrade for compact and privacy-preserving smart contracts, has been included in the most recent version of Bitcoin Core, currently the de-facto reference implementation for the Bitcoin protocol. The only remaining step is for the upgrade to activate on the Bitcoin network.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/lottrue-or-lotfalse-this-is-the-last-hurdle-before-taproot-activation
archive: https://archive.vn/TGHMA

Citadel Dispatch e0.1.0 - Bitcoin Self Custody, Security, and Privacy with craigraw and econoalchemist

EPISODE: 0.1.0
BLOCK: 671870
PRICE: 2085 sats per dollar
TOPICS: Bitcoin Self Custody, Security, and Privacy

Hexa Wallet v1.4.5 released

- Buy Bitcoin with Apple Pay, Debit/Credit Cards, and Bank Transfer
- Smart Auto Sync for all accounts

https://github.com/bithyve/hexa/releases/tag/v1.4.5

Samourai Dojo v1.9.0 released

- UX Improvements to Dojo Maintenance Tool
- Delete XPUBs tracked by your Dojo
- Improvements to authentication system

https://code.samourai.io/dojo/samourai-dojo/-/blob/master/RELEASES.md#samourai-dojo-v190

MyNode v0.2.27 released

- JoininBox v0.2.0
- Bitcoin whitepaper download (via blockchain)
- Mempool v2.1.2
- Loop v0.11.4
- RTL v0.10.1
- Specter v1.2.2
- LND v0.12.1

https://github.com/mynodebtc/mynode/releases/tag/v0.2.27

Coinbase files to go public on the Nasdaq via direct listing. Discloses $1.28B in 2020 revenue with 43 million active users.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679788/000162828021003168/coinbaseglobalincs-1.htm
archive: https://archive.vn/FFAND

BitMEX Parent Company 100x Group Provides Third Grant To Bitcoin Maintainer Michael Ford

> We’re proud to announce a third grant to Michael, of US$100,000, bringing our total financial support to US$250,000 over three years.

> This grant was provided in conjunction with Independent Reserve, who will be providing Michael with an additional US$18,500, bringing Michael’s total grant support up to US$118,500 this year.

https://blog.bitmex.com/100x-group-provides-third-grant-to-bitcoin-maintainer-michael-ford/
archive: https://archive.vn/bPQSp

Sparrow Wallet v1.2.0 released

- Provide a list of preconfigured public servers to connect to
- Update welcome dialog to explain risks and the privacy journey
- Export transactions to CSV
- Add signet support
- Improve script type descriptions
- Ensure PSBT files always save with the correct extension
- Fix tooltips not showing in some situations
- Fix importing some old Electrum wallets without derivation paths

https://github.com/sparrowwallet/sparrow/releases/tag/1.2.0

Blitz: Secure Multi-Hop Payments Without Two-Phase Commits

> We present Blitz, a novel MHP protocol that demonstrates for the first time that we can achieve the best of the two worlds: a single round MHP where no malicious intermediary can steal coins. Moreover, Blitz provides privacy for sender and receiver, it is not prone to the wormhole attack and it requires only constant collateral. Additionally, we construct MHP using only digital signatures and a timelock functionality, both available at the core of virtually every cryptocurrency today. We provide the cryptographic details of Blitz and we formally prove its security.

https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/176

Gemini is providing a $1 million dollar gift to the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Media Lab. This gift will be made in $250,000 installments over four years.The DCI will use the funds to support open-source development and advance the security of the Bitcoin protocol.

https://www.gemini.com/blog/gemini-opportunity-fund-donates-to-mits-digital-currency-initiative
archive: https://archive.vn/TTevc

Tales from the Crypt Podcast - Rabbit Hole Recap: Bitcoin Week of 2021.02.22

- Bitcoin week in review

https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Rabbit-Hole-Recap-Bitcoin-Week-of-2021-02-22-er36ra

Umbrel v0.3.6 released

- Performance improvements to the Mempool app, updates LND to v0.12.1, and includes some other small bug fixes.

https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel/releases/tag/v0.3.6