High-end bitcoin brokerage River Financial raised $17.3 million in a recent equity sale, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Thursday

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-brokerage-river-financial-funding-round
archive: https://archive.vn/xaoBm

Specter v1.2.0 released

- Un/Freeze UTXO option Snowflake
- Coin selection from UTXO tab
- Use Bitcoin Core 0.21 native descriptor wallets
- Show wallets that failed to load
- Support BitBox02 Pairing

https://github.com/cryptoadvance/specter-desktop/releases/tag/v1.2.0

The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado Podcast - Explaining Bitcoin Addresses - NADO 28

> Every Bitcoin user has probably at one point used Bitcoin addresses, but what are they, exactly?

http://nadobtc.btc.libsynpro.com/explaining-bitcoin-addresses-nado-28

No Bullshit Bitcoin is for bitcoiners by bitcoiners.

Our feed will always be free and open. We value your time and privacy. No account required. Accessible via web and RSS.

Web: https://t.me/s/nobullshitbitcoin
RSS Feed: https://rss.app/feeds/a7pA7KDznTPqIyqR.xml
Software Only: https://rss.app/feeds/duPS2SylSaQyRXml.xml
Podcasts Only: https://rss.app/feeds/oC5q9wI0kgprbAB2.xml

With no trackers, ads, or paywalls we rely on your feedback (@nobsbitcoin) and support.

bitcoin: donate.nobsbtc.com
lightning: tippin.me/@nobsbitcoin or @lntxbot
samourai: paynym.is/+proudsunset998

Bitcoin Privacy: Best Practices

> Although Bitcoin is entering its teenage years, we are — metaphor­i­cally speaking — still in the plain text era of the orange coin. Bitcoin is radically trans­parent by default, but there are meaningful ways to protect your privacy. In this article we want to highlight some of these ways, discuss best practices, and give action­able advice for newcomers and bitcoiners alike.

https://www.swanbitcoin.com/bitcoin-privacy-best-practices/
archive: https://archive.vn/vTfB3

Bit Buy Bit Podcast - EP69 with Evan Kaloudis

> Evan Kaloudis is the New York based developer behind Zeus Lightning Wallet, a phenomenal Open Source Android/iOS app that connects with your Bitcoin/Lightning node on the go.

https://bit-buy-bit.libsyn.com/ep69-bitcoin-podcast-with-evan-kaloudis

Can Governments Stop Bitcoin?

> The mainstream media typically portrays Bitcoin as a penny stock gone wild, or a new kind of digital tulip mania. But the reality is Bitcoin is a political project that threatens to fundamentally disrupt the Davos-led economic system, with everyone from Janet Yellen to Christine Lagarde expressing fear about its rise and demanding it be regulated.

https://quillette.com/2021/02/21/can-governments-stop-bitcoin/
archive: https://archive.vn/6jr8T

The Bitcoin Standard Podcast - Michael Saylor

> What are the assets obsoleted by bitcoin? What are Michael's mental models for thinking about bitcoin's price, his thoughts on price prediction models, and whether he thinks we'll see another big crash in bitcoin.

https://the-bitcoin-standard-podcast.castos.com/podcasts/18890/episodes/34-michael-saylor-on-the-fiat-standard

Onion Share v2.3 released

- Multiple tabs, including better support for persistent services, faster Tor connections
- Chat anonymously mode
- Ability to display QR codes of OnionShare addresses
- Web apps have responsive design and look better on mobile
- Flatpak and Snapcraft packaging for Linux

https://github.com/micahflee/onionshare/releases/tag/v2.3

Recently I stumbled across what I now sincerely believe is Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymous Twitter account from the pre-Bitcoin announcement era. In this post, I present my analysis.

https://offthetrack.substack.com/p/satoshis-anonymous-twitter-account
archive: https://archive.vn/m5ms6

Using Stowaway, A Privacy-Enhancing Tool From Samourai Wallet

> When someone wants to enhance their privacy while sending bitcoin, they can choose to use Stowaway, which will obfuscate the amount of bitcoin being sent in the transaction.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/using-stowaway-a-privacy-enhancing-tool-from-samourai-wallet
archive: https://archive.vn/btfZZ

FPPW: A Fair and Privacy Preserving Watchtower For Bitcoin

> In this paper, we introduce FPPW, a new payment channel with watchtower scheme for Bitcoin. This new scheme provides fairness w.r.t. all channel participants including both channel parties and the watchtower. It means that the funds of any honest channel participant are safe even assuming that other two channel participants are corrupted and/or collude with each other. Furthermore, the watchtower in FPPW learns no information about the off-chain transactions and hence the channel balance privacy is preserved. As a byproduct, we also define the coverage of a watchtower scheme, that is the total capacity of channels that a watchtower can cover on a scale of 0 to 1, and show that FPPW’s coverage is higher than those of PISA and Cerberus. The scheme can be implemented without any update in Bitcoin script.

https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/117.pdf

Down the Rabbit Hole Podcast - e18 Bitcoiner Education with BitcoinQ+A

- The Bitcoin Educational Grind
- Bitcoin Nodes, Wallets, and Resources
- Valuing privacy-preserving tools
- Pushing your own limits & inspiration

https://anchor.fm/dtrhpod/episodes/e18-Bitcoiner-Education-with-BitcoinQA-eqq733

Ride the Lightning v0.10.1 released

- Integration of swap service by Boltz
- Simplified service configuration of Boltz/Loop
- UTXO mgmt tools e.g. labeling, leasing and flagging of dust UTXOs (< 1k sats)
- New login page

https://github.com/Ride-The-Lightning/RTL/releases/tag/v0.10.1

Bitfinex and Tether have settled with the New York Attorney General's office, ending a legal dispute that began in mid-2019. Bitfinex and Tether admit no wrongdoing and have agreed to pay $18.5 million.

https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-ends-virtual-currency-trading-platform-bitfinexs-illegal
archive: https://archive.vn/55rlp

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