Month: January 2024

(NASHVILLE, TN – January 30th, 2024) Bitcoin Magazine, in collaboration with Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, is excited to unveil the 2024 Bitcoin Halving Livestream. This celebration, akin to a New Year’s Eve variety show and featuring bitcoin’s biggest names, is dedicated to marking the fourth epoch in Bitcoin’s history. Broadcasting live from Nashville, Tennessee, the event starts with the 839,979th Bitcoin block, with projections pointing to April 18, 2024, culminating in the milestone 840,000th block.

Mike Germano, President at Bitcoin Magazine, expresses his enthusiasm, “We at Bitcoin Magazine are thrilled to present the 2024 Bitcoin Halving Livestream in partnership with Kraken. This event is not just a celebration of Bitcoin’s fourth epoch but a testament to the unyielding spirit of the Bitcoin community. It’s an honor to mark this historic occasion, reflecting on our journey and looking forward to the boundless future of Bitcoin.”

The event, a quadrennial tribute to Bitcoin’s growth and its distinctive culture, invites the community to witness the Top 21 Moments of the epoch, engage with Bitcoin advocates at the Bitcoin Halving LIVE Desk, and enjoy live coverage of global halving celebrations.The timing of the event, kickstarting at Bitcoin Block Height 839,979, adds an intriguing unpredictability. Additionally, the livestream will announce the winners of the Bitcoin Halving Challenge, sponsored by Nitrobetting, awarding a 1 BTC prize pool. Ledger, as the Official Mempool Sponsor, will visualize the Bitcoin network in real-time at bitcoinhalving.com.

“Kraken is thrilled to partner with Bitcoin Magazine for the upcoming Bitcoin halving. As two companies that have been industry leaders in driving Bitcoin awareness and adoption since the first halving back in 2012, it was only right to collaborate in bringing to light some of the most memorable moments of the last epoch and power the insightful conversations to come around this next historic halving,” said Lou Frangella, Director of Brand Partnerships for Kraken. “Our Mission to accelerate the adoption of crypto worldwide and that continues to be at the forefront of everything we do.”

The 2024 Bitcoin Halving Livestream, powered by Kraken, is set to be a landmark event in Bitcoin’s history. Join Bitcoin enthusiasts around the world in this celebration of Bitcoin’s past, present, and future. Visit BitcoinHalving.com for updates and be part of this historic event by voting for the epoch’s Top 21 Moments, participating in the Bitcoin price prediction challenge competition, and tuning in to the livestream at the next Bitcoin halving.

About Bitcoin Magazine:

Bitcoin Magazine, the world’s first publication covering Bitcoin, serves its international readership with innovative ideas, breaking news, and global impact at the intersection of finance, technology, and Bitcoin. Operating from Nashville, Tennessee, Bitcoin Magazine is published by BTC Media. For the latest in Bitcoin news, visit BitcoinMagazine.com.

About Kraken:

Kraken is one of the world’s longest-standing and most secure digital asset exchanges, and is on a mission to empower people with new ways to connect and transact. Globally, Kraken clients trade more than 200 digital assets and 6 different fiat currencies, including GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, CHF and AUD.

Kraken was founded in 2011 and was one of the first exchanges to offer spot trading with margin, parachain auctions, staking, regulated derivatives and index services. Trusted by over 11 million traders and institutions around the world, Kraken offers professional, 24/7/365 customer support and one of the fastest, most performant trading platforms available. Kraken was the first company to conduct a Proof of Reserves audit and has committed to undergoing these audits on a regular basis.

Today, Ten31, a world leading bitcoin technology investor, has announced the Nasdaq Global Market stock exchange listing of its portfolio company, GRIID Infrastructure. This marks the first public listing for a bitcoin-focused investment fund’s portfolio company, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

GRIID, a uniquely positioned, vertically integrated bitcoin mining and energy infrastructure company, has successfully navigated the long regulatory review process to achieve this public listing. Ten31, having served as GRIID’s exclusive institutional capital partner, invested through its second institutional venture fund, Low Time Preference Fund II, underscoring its commitment to supporting innovative ventures in the bitcoin and freedom technology space.

“As a vertically integrated operator, purpose-built for bitcoin mining from day one, GRIID is uniquely positioned to become one of the leading bitcoin mining companies in the world,” said Trey Kelly, Founder and CEO of GRIID. “We believe that listing on Nasdaq will enhance our visibility, liquidity, and broaden our investor base as we continue to strengthen our market position and reinforce our commitment to delivering shareholder value. Ten31’s capital support and strategic guidance were invaluable in helping us reach this milestone. We feel strongly that there is no better partner or investor in the bitcoin space than Ten31, and we look forward to continuing our close partnership.”

In conjunction with GRIID’s listing achievement, Ten31 welcomes Harry Sudock, GRIID’s Chief Strategy Officer, as an Advisor while maintaining his role at GRIID. Sudock, a prominent figure in bitcoin mining and energy infrastructure, brings valuable expertise to Ten31’s advisory team.

“After many years building a bitcoin company, I know firsthand the crucial value of capital partners that both share our understanding of bitcoin and offer proven institutional investment expertise. They embody bitcoin’s proof of work ethos in everything they do,” Sudock stated. “I expect GRIID to be the first of many success stories to emerge from the Ten31 portfolio, and I’m excited to help support Ten31 as it invests in the best companies in the rapidly evolving bitcoin ecosystem while serving as a resource to both portfolio companies and their founders.”

This development aligns with the launch of Ten31’s third institutional fund, Low Time Preference Fund III, securing anchor commitments and fortifying its position as a leading bitcoin tech investor. Additionally, Ten31’s Tactical Fund aims to provide access to individual accredited investors, offering further opportunities for participation in the rapidly evolving bitcoin ecosystem.

Ten31’s commitment to supporting Bitcoin extends beyond investment in companies, as it continues to allocate funding to open-source development within the bitcoin ecosystem. The fund has granted support to independent bitcoin developer calle for his work on bitcoin-powered Chaumian ecash. Ten31 is the most active investor in open source businesses in the bitcoin ecosystem, and was a founding contributor to public charity OpenSats in 2021, supporting a variety of open source efforts on a no-strings-attached basis.

Anarchy is a very dividing word to many people, inherently drawing the idea into peoples’ heads of complete and unbridled chaos. This is not on any level what Anarchy means. It is simply a system lacking rulers or a central authority, where all cooperation and coordination is done on a purely voluntary basis between peers in the system. The etymology of the original Greek word, anarhkia, itself literally just means “without rulers.” An, meaning without, arkhia, meaning rulers.

This concept is the foundational reality of why Bitcoin functions as a distributed network and protocol. There is literally no one in charge of the network. If there were, then it would not be a distributed system composed of sovereign individuals voluntarily choosing to interact with each other.

People tend to look at Bitcoin as some objective truth that functions as a frame of reference for human beings, that it exists in the same sense as the laws of physics. That is not true. This notion confuses the borders between objectivity, intersubjectivity, and subjectivity.

An objective truth is one that exists regardless of peoples’ subjective belief in it. I.e. The laws of gravity mean that an object with enough mass will exert its gravitational influence over all other objects around it. No amount of refusal to believe in this fact of the universe will change it. You can convince the entire human race to the last man, woman, and child, that the laws of gravity in fact do not exist. This will not stop gravity from exerting its influence on all of them.

Now take for instance the value of the dollar. Is the dollar inherently valuable? Is that an objective statement of truth? It is not. The only reason the dollar has value to any individual is because they subjectively value it. Why does an individual subjectively value the dollar? Because other individuals also subjectively value the dollar. This is intersubjectivity.

It is simply a subjective viewpoint shared amongst a large number of individuals. That is what Bitcoin is, a distributed intersubjective system. So what is the difference between Bitcoin and the dollar? The lack of rulers and coercion. The dollar system has people in charge of it, the Federal Reserve, the commercial banks that actually issue new dollars by offering credit, the government agencies that regulate its use and who can interact with it. It has tax authorities mandating its use in the payment of your tax obligations.

Bitcoin has no such equivalent rulers. It has no Federal Reserve board, it has no commercial banks that dictate when and in what quantities dollars are brought into circulation. It has no taxes that you are coerced into paying by anyone. It is simply a distributed set of economic actors voluntarily running a piece of code in order to interact with each other.

“But Bitcoin has rules.” Yes, it does. That people voluntarily opt into. There is no power structure or governance structure involved in creating those rules. They were put out into the world by Satoshi Nakamoto, and every single person who has joined the network since that moment in time freely chose to adopt those rules. There is no structure saying “these are the rules.” There is simply the set of rules that everyone has voluntarily chosen to follow completely of their own accord.

Even changes to those rules that have occurred over the years, and there are quite a few of them, are purely voluntary in their nature. There was no governance structure or authority that imposed them on anyone. There are no “rules to change the rules.” Anyone at any time can step up into the social square and propose a new rule to add to the Bitcoin protocol and network. At any time people can choose to adopt that new rule, and if a critical mass of people do so, then it is now a rule of the network.

People often think that because the protocol and the network itself has rules, that there is some kind of framework of “meta rules” surrounding that. That these meta rules must be followed in order to change the rules of the system itself, or are some kind of binding requirement to fulfill some purpose or nature of the system that cannot be changed or evolve over time. This completely fails to internalize the reality of what an anarchic system actually is. There are no rules except what people choose to voluntarily follow of their own accord.

Within the confines of those rules, it is anarchy. Anything anyone can voluntarily do in interaction with another person in the confines of those rules, is allowed. Even those rules themselves are simply the result of a consensus arrived at through a process of pure anarchy, i.e. people interacting voluntarily within the framework that they chose to. That is what it is, no matter how much you might want to twist and contort definitions in your head to fit some other framework.

There is no authority to appeal to here. There are no rules to demand people follow other than the consensus rules themselves, and even that cannot be demanded or enforced. All you can do is hope that people choose to continue following them out of their own self interest. At any time a persuasive individual or group can convince others to change even those. If that occurs, there is nothing whatsoever you can do about it except attempt to be more persuasive.

That is what anarchy is. Free association devoid of any type of authority, or coercion, or control over who other people associate with, or under what terms they choose to associate. Bitcoin is anarchy, and if that fact disturbs you or instinctually makes you want to argue against it, then the reality is you never understood Bitcoin in the first place. 

Today, Google has revised its advertising guidelines, now permitting cryptocurrency trusts, such as Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), to promote their products. Spot Bitcoin ETF issuers such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have wasted no time in marketing their funds, with advertisements already starting to emerge.

This revision comes at an interesting time as the discussion around Bitcoin ETFs continues to gains momentum, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the first batch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the country. Google’s decision to allow advertising for Bitcoin ETFs provides these financial instruments with a much broader reach and exposure to a wider audience.

The updated guidelines mean that companies managing Bitcoin ETFs can now leverage Google’s advertising platform to raise awareness and attract investors. This change could contribute to increased visibility and understanding of Bitcoin ETFs among both institutional and retail investors.

Google’s decision aligns with the growing acceptance of Bitcoin and related investment products in mainstream finance. The move is likely to help foster a more innovative environment for Bitcoin, as it integrates more into traditional financial markets. As the industry eagerly awaits to see how well these revised guidelines are for the Bitcoin ETFs, the impact on the advertising landscape for them could be substantial.

For the first time since launch, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF is outpacing the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) in terms of trading volume so far today, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart.

BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF volume surpassing GBTC for the first time hints at a slow down in outflows for Grayscale’s ETF, which has had over $5 billion in outflows since launch. As highlighted below, the other spot Bitcoin ETFs have had total gross inflows of over $5.8 billion.

This trend could mark a significant shift in suggesting that the selling of GBTC is weakening, thus easing their current massive selling pressure of Bitcoin. Other spot Bitcoin ETFs have experienced large amounts of inflows such as BlackRock and Fidelity, who have a combined 98,264 BTC worth over $4.1 billion for their ETFs. 

As GBTC outflows lessen and inflows of other spot Bitcoin ETFs rise, BTC will continue to get taken off the market in record pace. To put this all into context, BlackRock have accumulated over 52,026 BTC since launch earlier this month. MicroStrategy, known for their aggressive Bitcoin accumulation strategy, have accumulated 189,150 BTC over the last ~four years.

As market participants eagerly wait in anticipation for the final numbers at the end of the day to see if the inflows on BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF can continue to outpace the outflows of GBTC, Bitcoin pumps over $43,000.