Month: July 2024

Alby is officially launching the waitlist for their new product, Alby Hub. The Hub is a one-click install Lightning Node application that aims to make self-custodial Lightning use as painless as possible. Users can sign up to join the waitlist here.

Alby Hub integrates a one click Lightning node, a self-custodial Lightning wallet, and an app store that enables easy connection between a user’s Lightning wallet and other applications such as Damus, Stacker News, podcast apps, and external Lightning wallets to control their nodes with.

Easy migration from Alby’s web wallet to Alby Hub is supported.

There will also be an Alby Hub Cloud plan for 21k satoshis a month to easily spin up an Alby Hub instance run in the Alby Cloud. The plan includes live channel management support and setup support, and access to the Alby Buzz community. Alby Hub will also be made available as a DIY tool to install on your own desktop or server. It will even be possible to run on a Raspberry Pi Zero.

Alby Hub was developed to remove the friction in running your own self-custodial Lightning Node. Given the dominance of custodial Lightning solutions in the space currently, the goal of Alby Hub is to make it as painless as possible for users to manage their own Lightning funds in a self custodial environment, making them a truly sovereign Lightning user.

Michael Bumann, the founder of Alby, had this to say:

“At Alby, we always focused on building tools and protocols to natively use the Lightning Network on the web like the Alby Extension, which changed the way Lightning is used in web browsers. With Alby Hub, we are now taking Lightning Network self-custody to the next level by rethinking the utility behind running a lightning node. What does a node and wallet look like that can integrate with any bitcoin-powered app with just a few clicks? With Alby Hub, users now have endless possibilities for self-sovereign payments on the web without the technical overhead.”

Join the waitlist here now. 

Luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari announced it will expand the ability to pay with Bitcoin and crypto to its European dealerships starting this month. The move comes after Ferrari first began accepting Bitcoin and crypto payments at its US dealers last year.

JUST IN: Luxury Cars Manufacturer Ferrari to accept #Bitcoin and crypto payments in Europe. pic.twitter.com/PxT7Z7OwbP

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 24, 2024

Ferrari said the rollout to Europe will occur by the end of July, enabling customers to purchase new vehicles using Bitcoin and crypto. The company plans to expand the Bitcoin payment option to dealers worldwide by the end of 2024, where legally permitted.

Ferrari continues its partnership with leading Bitcoin payments processor BitPay to process the payments. When a purchase is made in Bitcoin, BitPay instantly converts it to traditional fiat currency for Ferrari’s dealers to remove exposure to Bitcoin and crypto volatility.

The ability to pay with Bitcoin and other crypto caters to Ferrari’s tech-savvy customer base with sizeable Bitcoin wealth. It also taps into growing mainstream adoption, as more major companies accept Bitcoin payments including Microsoft, AT&T, and travel site Expedia.

Ferrari said accepting Bitcoin and crypto provides customers with additional flexibility and convenience in purchasing the company’s luxury vehicles. The automaker saw strong demand after enabling Bitcoin payments in the US last year.

As luxury and high-end brands adopt Bitcoin payments, it helps legitimize the asset class as a currency and not just an investment. The ability of consumers to spend Bitcoin at more retailers was also cited as a factor in the recent Bitcoin market rally.

Proton, the Swiss technology company that creates privacy-preserving online tools like ProtonMail and ProtonVPN, is launching Proton Wallet, a self-custody Bitcoin wallet.

This new product will be integrated with ProtonMail and will enable users to send bitcoin as easily as sending an email.

“Bitcoin’s value to society has been hindered by the difficulty of transacting and security concerns, and we designed Proton Wallet to specifically address both,” said Andy Yen, founder and CEO of Proton in a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “Proton Wallet’s ability to support Bitcoin via email now makes Bitcoin transactions as easy to use as PayPal, while preserving the decentralized and non-custodial nature of Bitcoin.”

Proton Wallet is the latest in its suite of end-to-end encrypted tools that help Proton users maintain privacy when using the internet.

Before diving into the details of this new product, it’s important to understand Proton’s motivation in creating it.

For Proton, Proton Wallet Is Personal

If it weren’t for Bitcoin, Proton might not exist.

“This summer is actually the 10 year anniversary of Proton,” Yen told Bitcoin Magazine in an interview.

“In July 2014, we had our original crowdfunding campaign, and halfway through the campaign, PayPal actually froze our funds. So, Proton actually had a near-death experience at the very beginning,” he added.

“We added a bitcoin donation link when the crowdfunding campaign got shut down, and that’s when we started receiving our first bitcoin. It was at that moment 10 years ago that we first realized the true power of Bitcoin and what it can enable.”

Yen also touched on how happy the team Proton was when Credit Suisse, the bank it used to manage its fiat business funds, collapsed in March 2023.

“Credit Suisse had that moment of limbo where we were not sure if they were going to get bailed out or not,” recalled Yen. “The fact that we had a big portion of our reserves in bitcoin was actually something that was prudent to do because it more or less ensured the long-term sustainability of the business.”

Dingchao Lu, Director of Proton Wallet and the company’s first employee, is also grateful for the role that Bitcoin has played in the history of Proton, and he wants it to play a similar role for Proton users worldwide.

“We want to reduce the world’s dependence on centralized financial institutions,” said Lu in the press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “By giving users control of their own encryption keys and their own digital assets, we’re offering financial freedom, improved privacy and safety to millions of people around the world.”

Lu also shared that Proton has felt the financial benefits of holding the bitcoin it’s accepted for payments over the years.

“We’ve been taking Bitcoin payments since we launched out of beta back in 2016,” he told Bitcoin Magazine in an interview.

“That has been working well for us. The Bitcoin price has gone up something like 100 times since those early days, and we’ve held onto our Bitcoin,” he added.

The Details

Proton will leverage its existing infrastructure to make Proton Wallet more user-friendly.

To use Proton Wallet to make a bitcoin transaction, both the sender and receiver must have the wallet. The sender need only have the recipient’s email address, whether that address is a ProtonMail address or not, to send the bitcoin.

Behind the scenes, Proton will rotate Bitcoin addresses each time a user sends or receives bitcoin, which helps to prevent the addresses from being linked a user’s identity.

As mentioned, Proton Wallet is non-custodial, which means that only users have access to the funds in the wallet. Proton will offer “robust recovery methods” for said keys, though it has yet to offer what those recovery methods will look like. Bitcoin managed in Proton Wallet can be retrieved even if Proton goes offline.

All transactions using Proton Wallet will occur on the base chain, as Proton has not implemented Lightning yet for one main reason.

“Lightning is very difficult to do in a non-custodial way,” said Yen.

“If you want to do non-custodial lightning and you want to have people open up channels of their own, that’s a user experience that at the present moment still isn’t really solved,” he added.

“But Lightning support is something that we can add in the future as we find ways to work around the user experience problem.”

Proton will also make it easier for people to buy bitcoin, as it will provide on-ramp integrations in over 150 different countries.

What is more, Proton Wallet will also provide support for two-factor authentication, including hardware security keys, and it will offer users access to Proton Sentinel, which employs machine learning and AI to help stop malicious login attempts. Proton Sentinel helps protect users’ accounts in the event that the account has been compromised or if an attacker has obtained access to a user’s login information.

How To Get Started With Proton Wallet

Proton Wallet is currently only available to Proton Visionary users, a Proton plan normally only for legacy users but that has been re-opened for a limited time, and “select Bitcoin community members” as part of an early access program.

These participants can invite friends to join, while the product will be available to all Proton users in the future.

In the press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine, Proton also shared that it will issue a wait list for those looking to get started with Proton Wallet.

SunnySide Digital (SunnySide) and Cryptech Solutions (Cryptech), two wholesale distributors and service providers for digital asset mining and HPC data center equipment, have joined forces to launch Synteq Digital (Synteq).

Synteq Digital aims to meet the needs of the digital mining and HPC industries at scale by growing the reach of its digital hardware wholesaling business as well as rolling out new services.

“We are very excited to create a new market participant by combining our respective teams, core values, and reputational cache to form Synteq,” Taras Kulyk, CEO of Synteq and founder and former CEO of SunnySide, said in a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine.

“This new entity will provide the scale and breadth of services to our enterprise and commercial scale clients and partners in the HPC & digital mining data center sectors. Our dynamic blend of leadership, technical strength, and a robust track record of execution experience will be pivotal as we continue to grow our new verticals,” he added.

New Services From Synteq

The new offerings from Synteq include procurement, colocation and wholesaling of enterprise-focused GPU/HPC hardware; Just-In-Time (JIT) DataCenter consignment parts & supply; and an Enterprise Fleet Refresh Service Model, which includes cleaning, upgrading and repairing older digital mining hardware.

With the expansion of its new verticals, Joe Stefanelli, Synteq President and founder and former CEO of Cryptech, is optimistic that his new company will quickly gain traction worldwide.

“I see Synteq quickly becoming the global go-to platform for HPC and digital mining data centers,” Stefanelli said in the press release. “Our team’s focus is on delivering top-notch services and solutions marked by expertise, integrity, and reliability.”

Synteq’s Deal With Bitmain

One of Synteq’s first new partners will be Bitmain Technologies (Bitmain), a China-based industry leader in Bitcoin mining rig production. Synteq will be Bitmain’s exclusive distribution partner for the United States.

“It’s the first time that Bitmain is acknowledging partners in the industry,” Stefanelli told Bitcoin Magazine in an interview. “We’re the first company that’ll be a distributor — they call it a Hashrate Ambassador — for Bitmain.”

Aside from its deal with Bitmain, Synteq will continue its partnerships with Rosseau Immersion and ePIC Blockchain among other existing partnerships from both SunnySide and Cryptech, according to Kulyk.

A Reaction To Industry Consolidation

SunnySide and Cryptech decided to join forces because of shifting winds in the digital mining and HPC industry.

“The industry is going through a consolidation,” said Kulyk.

“There’s a ton of M&A and our clients are scaling up and getting bigger,” he added.

“We’re now dealing with operators that have a gigawatt of power under operation and control, and they want somebody who can provide services and solutions at the scale that they need in a timely fashion with reliability as well as professionalism.”

Stefanelli, who clarified that Synteq isn’t the result of a merger between SunnySide and Cryptech but a new entity all together, shared that it felt logical for Cryptech and SunnySide to work together.

“There were a lot of synergies between what we both did and a lot of overlap with clients,” he said.

“We shared a lot of the same values as individuals and as companies, we like to run our companies the same way and we were pretty good competition to each other,” he added.

“We really saw the benefit of bringing everyone together.”

Metaplanet Inc., a Japanese public company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, has announced a partnership with Hoseki, a global leader in Bitcoin verification solutions, to launch a Bitcoin proof of reserves system. This collaboration aims to enhance transparency and trust in Metaplanet’s Bitcoin holdings through Hoseki Verified, a Bitcoin verification product.

“Companies like Metaplanet will define the future of the Bitcoin industry,” said Sam Abbassi, Founder and CEO of Hoseki. “We are thrilled to support them in utilizing this core feature of the Bitcoin monetary network – its radical audit-ability and transparency.“

Hoseki Verified offers a public dashboard providing real-time visibility into Bitcoin holdings, showcasing verified assets with custodians such as Coinbase, BitGo, and Gemini. This initiative ensures that investors and stakeholders can verify the integrity of Metaplanet’s Bitcoin holdings in real-time.

“As Bitcoin adoption proliferates globally, the importance of transparency cannot be overstated,” said Dylan LeClair, Director of Bitcoin Strategy at Metaplanet. “Our partnership with Hoseki aligns with Bitcoin’s ‘Don’t Trust, Verify’ ethos and pioneers transparency in a world where money exists on a transparent, auditable global ledger. This marks the beginning of a series of initiatives Metaplanet will undertake to uphold and advance these principles.”

Earlier this year, Metaplanet adopted the MicroStrategy Bitcoin corporate playbook by purchasing Bitcoin and holding it as the company’s primary treasury reserve asset. Since the initial purchase, the company has continuously bought more and more Bitcoin. Just yesterday, the company bought an additional ¥200 million worth of BTC.

JUST IN: 🇯🇵 Japanese public company Metaplanet buys another ¥200 million worth of #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/jMuBtYaNqI

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 22, 2024

Disclaimer: Bitcoin Magazine is wholly owned by BTC Inc., which also operates UTXO Management, a regulated capital allocator focused on the digital assets industry and invested in Metaplanet. UTXO invests in a variety of Bitcoin businesses, and maintains significant holdings in digital assets. 

Conservatives vowed to bring sound money policy to Washington in 2025, but the battle for your financial freedom is closer to home than you would expect. States pioneered this effort, and should capitalize on this national momentum to defend American financial liberties locally.

This month, the Republican National Committee released a draft proposal for changes to the party platform that would assert the party’s stance against a central bank digital currency — also known as a CBDC or digital dollar — and in support of the right to mine, own, and privately transact in digital assets like Bitcoin.

Sound monetary policy has been a growing focus of the 2024 election as Republican candidates like Former President Trump and Vivek Ramaswami publicly supported digital assets — specifically Bitcoin — while denouncing the implementation of a CBDC. Even the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. holds a similar stance on these issues.

As fresh as these issues may seem at the national level, states have been in discussions over sound money for some time. The Idaho Republican party was the first to add pro-digital asset, anti-CBDC language to a major state party platform. The Gem State also considered two bills during the 2024 legislative session that would have fulfilled that pillar of the platform, but ultimately failed by close votes in the House and Senate.

Though Idaho still faces roadblocks, other states have successfully enacted sound money policy in recent years. Florida passed legislation to ban CBDCs. North Carolina and Arizona considered similar legislation that ultimately failed. Meanwhile, Wyoming, Montana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana passed legislation to defend fundamental rights on digital assets.

These policies come as states attempt to stem the threats to Americans’ liberties posed by private banks and the federal bureaucracy.

Financial institutions are the new scene of the Left’s cultural warfare. Many banks are ending their business with certain religious organizations, firearms manufacturers, or non-green industries. This can be crippling in a modern, mostly digital economy and threatens agriculture, mining, and energy — some of the leading industries in Idaho’s economy.

Privacy is also a chief concern for many Americans. The federal government weaponizes its power over the banking system to search citizens’ transaction histories without a warrant despite this infringing on the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Worse yet, bureaucracies in Washington, D.C. — being dissatisfied with their existing degree of outsized control — want to monitor and control every American’s financial transactions through a CBDC. This new, digital dollar, could offer unparalleled control through programmable issuance, use, and taxation.

It’s worrisome that bureaucrats want even more control over a financial system they already proved they cannot manage well. The hidden tax of inflation is devastating the savings of all Americans who use the dollar as a store of value. Yet, the government continues to borrow and print to sustain its ever-increasing size.

States that have proposed and passed legislation to protect the financial liberties of their constituents recognize these problems and are acting accordingly. They are providing a way for the market to escape from a financial system that is no longer private, stable, and free.

Even if sound money policy advances at the federal level, this would not relieve the need for states to act. States that do not yet have these protections must continue to advance these policies locally.

States should take advantage of the national momentum for sound money policy and work to defend the financial sovereignty of their constituents. Idaho is a prime candidate for these policies. After all, both of the Gem State’s neighbors to the east already enacted some of these policies.

Idaho should catch up to her peers by executing its own sound money policy agenda. This starts with acknowledging a CBDC is not money and banning the state’s cooperation with the Federal Reserve’s implementation of the system. It must also defend the right to mine, own, and transact in digital assets. This will allow Idahoans to defend their financial liberties by opting out of a system poised to control and regulate their finances.

Of course, Idaho is not the only state that could benefit from these policies. Now is the time for state legislatures to leverage this national momentum and consider how they can protect the finances of their constituents. Otherwise, they may find that the nation has left them behind on an issue where states are leading.

This is a guest post by Niklas Kleinworth. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.