Category: Crypto

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When Bitcoin was first launched by Satoshi Nakamoto, there was no price. It was literally worth $0.

The price of bitcoin first broke over $100 in April of 2013 and was captured on film as it rose to an all time high of $111. Later that year in December, BTC rose dramatically higher hitting a new all time high over $1,000.

Reacting to #Bitcoin reaching an ATH of $111 back in 2013 🤯 pic.twitter.com/qkBfdNJyjA

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) February 11, 2024

Four years later, Bitcoin rose to $10,000 and beyond in November during the infamous bull market of 2017.

Our front page is looking pretty sweet right about now! 🚀 #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ug77yZoPW1

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) November 29, 2017

Now, today we are at a historic time in history. December 4, 2024, will forever go down in history as the day the price of bitcoin rose above $100,000 for the first time.

BREAKING: #BITCOIN HITS $100,000 FOR FIRST TIME EVER!https://t.co/XwdsvLUycN

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 5, 2024

The next logical target for Bitcoin is another 10x away — $1,000,000.

It is now no longer a question of if Bitcoin will achieve this, but when. When it comes to Bitcoin as a store of value, it has won. It’s off to the races from here, any price action is now possible. And one can only assume that going from $100,000 to $1,000,000 is going to be a lot easier than going from $0 to $100,000.

During this rise to $100,000, Bitcoin has cemented itself as a legitimate asset, and everyone who has taken any meaningful amount of time to research and understand it is buying more.

Everyday people around the world have adopted it for savings, payments, and financial privacy, nation states have adopted it as legal tender and are passing very pro-Bitcoin legislation, and now Wall Street firms are joining in. For someone who has been around for 7 years in the Bitcoin world, it feels unreal.

Congratulations to all the bitcoin holders, old and new, on achieving this milestone. For those who have been HODLing through the bear markets, educating themselves on why Bitcoin is so important, accumulating BTC and ignoring the FUD, and onboarding new Bitcoiners — I salute you. You deserve this and all the gains that have been made on this journey.

This was not easy, you did not get lucky. It takes conviction and strength to be able to buy and hold this extremely volatile asset long term. Enjoy this moment with your friends and family, and here’s to a new era of Bitcoin — the grind towards $1,000,000.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Today, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said in an exclusive interview with CNBC that Bitcoin is in competition with gold, not the U.S. dollar.

BREAKING: 🇺🇸 Fed Chair Jerome Powell says #Bitcoin is a competitor to gold, not the US dollar. pic.twitter.com/YQHFiThTBo

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 4, 2024

“People use bitcoin as a speculative asset — it’s like gold,” Powell said.

“It’s just like gold, only it’s virtual, it’s digital. People are not using it as a form of payment or as a store of value. It’s highly volatile. It’s not a competitor for the dollar, it’s really a competitor for gold,” he added.

While it sounds like he may have stumbled on his own words, saying no one uses bitcoin as a store of value when that is literally one of its most prominent use cases for it today, I agree with his overall position.

As an American living in America, I do not feel that BTC is in competition with the U.S. dollar today. Myself, along with many other Bitcoiners I know, are trying to stockpile as much bitcoin as we can, using it as a store of value. When I do spend bitcoin, which I do every weekend when I buy beef at the farmers market) it’s not the bitcoin from my long term savings that I’m spending. I’m taking dollars from my bank account, buying bitcoin on Cash App, and directly sending that bitcoin to the farmer using the Lightning Network. I feel like I’m basically spending the dollars in my bank rather than bitcoin that I hoard.

I prefer to spend my dollars, a depreciating asset, and save in bitcoin, an appreciating asset. Because BTC is not widely accepted where I live, I need dollars in my daily life. I am also incentivized to spend my dollars instead because I can earn more bitcoin too by using bitcoin-back rewards apps like Fold and Lolli.

I also prefer to store my wealth in bitcoin as compared to gold. I don’t need gold, as I can’t spend it anywhere, and while it maintains value vs the dollar, it continues to lose value against bitcoin year after year. It makes no sense for me to hold gold. When it comes to price appreciation, why would I choose to hold a loser when I know the winner is going to continue to outperform it?

I would predict that the overwhelming majority of Americans would choose the dollar over bitcoin today when it comes to a medium of exchange. Bitcoin is not in competition with the dollar today. But when it comes to choosing a store of value, gold or bitcoin, I think bitcoin is the clear winner. Although bitcoin’s market cap is still only a fraction of gold’s, I believe bitcoin will continue to be seen as superior to gold. Whether Powell is aware of all of Bitcoin’s properties, he’s right that bitcoin is strongly viewed much more like a digital form of gold than a new monetary mechanism for payments in the United States.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

A small, but significant development in Bitcoin’s much-debated decentralized consensus process is taking place, with some developers moving to publicly gauge sentiment of warring soft fork proposals that would augment the software rule set.

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More specifically, the effort began today with the creation of a page on the Bitcoin Wiki website called “Covenants Support,” whereon the network’s pseudonymous developers are able to attest as to their interest in no less than nine proposals, with a six option rating system.

The effort is not affiliated with Bitcoin Core, the network’s major software implementation.

Yet, it’s notable, as the process has been evoked in past Bitcoin consensus upgrades, dating back to the first soft fork, P2SH, in 2012, and continuing through the fabled Fork Wars, with SegWit, the most contested change to date, both having dedicated Wiki pages.

Covenants, a method of restricting the spending conditions of specific UTXOs, has been gaining mindshare since 2021, with the introduction of OP_CTV, authored by developer Jeremy Rubin, though opinions differed at the time on the strength of the proposal and its promotion.

Among those being gauged for developer sentiment are OP_VAULT, a covenants scheme aimed more specifically at custody, and OP_CAT, an alteration that would bring back Satoshi-era capabilities, like the ability to perform complex code queries.

Already weighing in with their opinions are Luke Dashjr, one of the network’s longest-standing contributors, alongside newer entrants such as Jon Attack, Brandon Black, and MoonSettler.

Should the effort gain traction, the page could emerge as one to watch. 

Bitcoin’s governance process, though much debated, has seldom conformed to a dedicated process, with some long-time contributors arguing against the necessity of a process at all.

Still, the move is indicative of an overall interest among the development community in moving forward with code updates that improve Bitcoin for users, though there will likely remain debate as to the preferred update, as well as the activation method that would enable it. 

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Company Name: Heatbit

Founder: Alex Busarov

Date Founded: April 2020

Location of Headquarters: Remote

Number of Employees: 25

Website: https://heatbit.com/

Public or Private? Private

In early 2020, Alex Busarov was stuck in his Shanghai apartment during COVID. To quell his boredom, he ordered an Antminer S9, a Bitcoin mining machine, to toy around with.

After plugging it in, he quickly learned two things: Bitcoin miners are noisy and they run hot.

While Busarov saw the prior byproduct as an annoyance, he viewed the latter as an opportunity.

Fast-forward to the present day and Busarov and his team are preparing holiday shipments of bitcoin miners that run quietly and double as space heaters (as well as air purifiers) — the flagship product for his company, Heatbit.

What is more, Busarov has created a product that helps to decentralize Bitcoin’s hashrate, which has become dangerously centralized.

“The first kind of value that I saw in this was how to use energy for heating your home and mining Bitcoin at the same time, but then the mission started evolving as I realized the importance of the decentralization of Bitcoin mining,” Busarov told Bitcoin Magazine. “I think we’re enabling the most resilient infrastructure for Bitcoin to run on.”

How Heatbit Devices Work

Heatbit devices stand at 24 inches in height and 8 inches in diameter. They’re cylindrical in shape and have a sleek finish.

Heatbit’s flagship device.

Getting started with a Heatbit device is “as difficult as it is to plug in a Dyson device,” according to Busarov.

After doing so, users need only download the Heatbit app and connect the device to WiFi to begin mining bitcoin.

Once the device is running, using no more energy than a Dyson space heater and making no more noise than a whirring sound at the volume of whisper, it points the hash power that it produces to a default mining pool, which is currently NiceHash and soon to be Luxor. Users will eventually also be able to choose their own mining pool or search for Bitcoin blocks without being part of a pool if they please.

“Basically, you can start without even knowing what a mining pool is,” explained Busarov. “But once you learn a little more or if you already know about mining pools, you just plug in the details for the mining pool you want to join, or solo mine.”

Busarov clarified that the functionality to choose your mining pool or to mine solo hasn’t been enabled for all users yet, but it will be in the near future.

“We don’t have any intention to lock users into a particular pool,” he said.

If the device runs 24/7, it mines approximately 700 sats per day, which equates to approximately 20,000 sats per month — about $20 per month as per bitcoin’s price at the time of writing.

The sats earned are held in a smart contract until the amount reaches a certain threshold (which is currently between $10 and $20 worth of bitcoin) before they’re deposited into the user’s wallet address on the Bitcoin base chain.

Busarov is aware that some users are concerned with Bitcoin fees rising, which is why he and his team are working on implementing Lightning.

“Lightning is definitely coming,” said Busarov. “It’s not enabled yet, but it’s coming.”

Decentralizing The Hashrate

As Busarov mentioned, it wasn’t his original intention in creating Heatbit devices to contribute to the decentralization of the Bitcoin hashrate. However, once he began considering just how centralized it is in some regards, he acknowledged this deeper dimension of Heatbit’s value proposition.

“When you have five big mining companies and 20 well-known mining locations, if you want to damage Bitcoin, you know those 20 locations, right?” cautioned Busarov.

“Also, if the price of Bitcoin goes down a lot, which happens sometimes, and the mining companies are overleveraged, they might not exist anymore,” added Busarov regarding the risk of major mining companies going bankrupt.

“But people will still use the heaters, because they’re not spending any extra money to mine this way. They will still use their miners because they’re not losing any money, which makes it the cheapest way to mine.”

At first thought, Busarov’s claim that the home miners he’s built can play a legitimate role in supporting the Bitcoin network seems a bit hyperbolic, especially considering the fact that the amount of hashrate Heatbit devices currently produce is infinitesimal compared to the amount that major mining companies produce.

However, when one considers the size of the home heater market, Busarov’s assertion seems a bit more believable.

“There’s about 200 million electric heaters being sold every year,” said Busarov, referring to the market Heatbit is looking to capture in the long run.

In the short term, though, Busarov understands that the buyers in that market don’t necessarily have the money for a space heater like a Heatbit, which retails for $799.

“Most people wouldn’t buy an $800 heater,” he explained. “We’re looking into making a more affordable version so that we can sell more.”

Prioritizing affordability has taken a back seat to focusing on quality and timeliness, however. Busarov and his team have been putting all of their efforts into making a durable and dependable device that they can ship with haste.

Built To Last, Ready To Ship

The current iteration of Heatbit devices is the product of a tremendous amount of R&D as well as the sourcing of quality parts from over 70 different suppliers.

In other words, Busarov and his team have built a device that can take a beating. (Not that you should beat your Heatbit device; we don’t condone home Bitcoin miner / home heater abuse here at Bitcoin Magazine.)

“Today, I was doing some testing of the devices for the latest batch,” said Busarov.

“I put one into the box and was literally throwing it around. I was throwing it like UPS or FedEx might, and I took it out to find that it didn’t break,” he added.

Busarov shared this information with a smile, one seemingly half born from my reaction to his account of how he tests the resiliency of his products and half derived from the faith that many in the Bitcoin community have come to have in him.

“When we started building, it was taking longer than expected,” explained Busarov, adding that he and his team were operating under pressure as customers had preordered devices.

“Some people would complain about a delay in shipping and ask for refunds, and we refunded the money, but then a lot of people said, ‘Hey, guys, you’re doing a great thing. We believe in you. Keep going,” he added.

“When people say something like that to you, you can’t stop. When there’s so much faith and trust that people place in you, that gives you so much energy and motivation to keep going.”

Keep going Busarov and his team did, eventually creating a dependable product that’s now ready to ship en masse.

The Future Of Heatbit

Busarov hopes that when major household appliance companies see what Heatbit has created, they become interested in building similar products.

“I think once we show that this is possible, more companies will come to it,” he said.

“It will start getting really interesting when companies like Dyson and Samsung and the major electronics companies start looking into this,” he added.

“Imagine Samsung starts producing home devices — not necessarily space heaters — but other home devices that do mine at scale.”

Busarov has also been keeping an eye on developments in the open source Bitcoin mining movement, and has been in touch with one of its leaders: Skot, the founder of Bitaxe. He’s looking at what he might be able to incorporate from that movement, while staying conscious of the fact that he’s building a consumer product for which safety is paramount.

“I really like the open source Bitcoin mining movement, and I hope we’ll be able to contribute to it,” said Busarov.

“That being said, we need to be careful, because heaters use a lot of power and it can be dangerous for people to just play with them,” he added.

As a final thought, Busarov reiterated that he doesn’t believe he’s simply building an innovative product for the average consumer, but that Heatbit is playing a role in shaping the future of Bitcoin mining.

“Bitcoin mining is not going to be about these huge warehouses using loads of energy and then these big companies having to sell the bitcoin they mine to pay for the energy they use and their operational costs,” he explained. “With home mining, you don’t have to sell any of the bitcoin you earn.”

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Bitcoin is its own network state, to borrow a term from Balaji Srinivasan. That is, while Bitcoin proponents aren’t bound to one geographical region (quite the opposite, actually) they have collective power and can enact change.

We just saw some version of this power exercised in the U.S. political sphere, as the Bitcoin (and crypto) lobby fiercely supported pro-Bitcoin candidates in the recent U.S. election cycle. Because this lobby was so strong, many pro-Bitcoin candidates were elected or re-elected into positions of power.

One could argue that Trump won the election because he embraced Bitcoin, while Harris could only seem to muster up the ability to make lukewarm, offbeat statements about being pro-crypto (statements that some at Bitcoin Magazine found inauthentic and even borderline offensive).

Now, there’s another opportunity for the Bitcoin community to rally behind a candidate. For the first time in the history, a country has a presidential nominee who’s running on the notion of putting her country on a bitcoin standard. That country is Suriname and that candidate is Maya Parbhoe.

Parbhoe understands the transformative power of bitcoin and believes that making it legal tender can help get Suriname’s 600,000 citizens out of “survival mode,” as she puts it.

So, my question to you as a Bitcoin enthusiast is this: Do you want to watch as Parbhoe attempts to make history or do you want to play a role in helping her make it?

In other words, are you going to contribute to her campaign — as Bitcoin allows you to do from anywhere in the world permissionlessly — or are you going to be a spectator?

🚨 Corruption has no place in our future!

We can’t keep trusting a system that deceives us.

It’s time to act!

Verifying every action is the key to a Suriname free of corruption.

Your support is crucial. https://t.co/rBQxhqq7zm #maya2025 #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/hkXZislsAl

— Maya Parbhoe (@MayaPar25) November 23, 2024

(You can track how donations are spent here.)

You can also reach out to Parbhoe’s campaign via info@bitcoinsranan.com to offer support in other ways if you feel so inclined.

The election takes place in May 2025, and Parbhoe and her team are currently gearing up for campaign season (including obtaining the funds to campaign). It’s hard to say just yet how much of a shot she has at winning, but she’ll likely have less of one without your support.

So, if you’d like to see the Bitcoin network state include another nation state, you have the opportunity here to play a part in potentially making that happen.

(Author’s note: Please keep in mind that this piece is not necessarily an endorsement of Parbhoe but a call to action for those who support her.)

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

The public discussion around scaling in the last few years has become poisoned and captured by an incredibly toxic and defeatist attitude: “Why bother?”

“Why bother trying to scale? Basic napkin math shows it’s impossible no matter what we do for everyone to self custody.”

“Why bother trying to scale? People are stupid and lazy anyway, even if we did people would just use a custodian anyways.”

“Why bother trying to scale? I’ve got mine, I’ll be rich enough for self custody, who cares about the stupid and lazy plebs anyways?”

This attitude is permeating the entire space more and more as time goes on, with a plethora of different rationalizations and reasons for it depending on who you talk to. It is a completely defeatist, dystopian, and pessimistic view of the future. I say that as someone who is incredibly pessimistic about a large number of issues that I see in this ecosystem.

Talking yourself into losing is one of the fastest ways to wind up losing. Bitcoin as a distributed system depends on being dispersed enough, and having enough independent system participants, that it can resist the coercive or malicious influence of larger participants. This is critical to it continuing to function as a decentralized and censorship resistant system. If it cannot remain dispersed enough in its distribution then natural tendencies in networks will likely gravitate towards larger and more dense participants until they effectively have an outsized control over the whole network.

That will ultimately very likely spell the end for Bitcoin’s most important property: censorship resistance.

What is mind boggling to me is, even though we aren’t in a perfect place, we have made massive progress in the last decade. Ten years ago we had people screaming about raising the blocksize. Now we have the Lightning Network, Statechains, and now Ark. We have people experimenting with wildly improved federated custodial models using BitVM. We even have a vague inkling of ways to implement covenants without a softfork if some new cryptographic assumptions pan out and prove practical to implement in a usable way.

Even if we do bump into a ceiling eventually we can’t get around, every bit of ground we gain means room for more people to self custody. It means more room for more custodians, allowing more numerous small scale ones to enable people to custody with people they trust more than disconnected corporations, for that more numerous herd to impose greater competitive pressure for custodians in general. To maintain that wide dispersion of entities directly interacting with the network that it needs to maintain its decentralization.

Why are so many Bitcoiners willing to throw up their hands and give in to defeatist sentiment? Yes, we have more problems to solve than we did ten years ago, but we have also covered a massive amount of ground in expanding scalability in that ten years. This isn’t a binary situation, this isn’t a game where you win or lose with no middle ground. Every improvement to scalability we can make gives Bitcoin a higher chance of success. It entrenches and defends Bitcoin’s censorship resistance that much more.

I’m not saying that people should naively buy into every promised solution or hyped thing, there are definitely problems and limitations we should remain cognizant of. But that doesn’t mean throw in the towel and give up this early. There is so much potential here to actually reshape the world in a meaningful way, but that won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen at all if everyone just gives up and kicks back expecting to get rich and apathetically stops caring about it.

Blind pessimism and blind optimism are both poison, it’s time to start looking for a balance between the two rather than picking your drug of choice and sinking into delusion. 

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

For centuries, self-custody has symbolized financial autonomy, enabling individuals to secure their wealth—from gold to cash—without intermediaries. Bitcoin extends this principle into the digital realm, offering a censorship-resistant, decentralized way to hold assets. Yet, upcoming European regulations under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and the Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR) threaten to complicate self-custody for Bitcoin users.

A New Regulatory Era

MiCA, adopted in April 2023, aims to regulate crypto-assets comprehensively in the EU. The revised TFR applies the “Travel Rule” to Bitcoin transactions, requiring detailed sender and recipient information for compliance. These changes will come into effect in 2025, making it harder for Europeans to interact with Bitcoin self-custody wallets without cryptographic proof of ownership.

One proposed solution is the “Satoshi Test,” where users verify wallet ownership by sending a small amount of Bitcoin (e.g., one satoshi) from their wallet to the exchange. While simple for existing holders, this process creates a paradox for new users: they need Bitcoin to verify ownership but cannot acquire Bitcoin without passing the test. This “catch-22” risks alienating new adopters, steering them toward custodial solutions that compromise Bitcoin’s ethos of decentralization and financial sovereignty.

Privacy and Security Risks

In an effort to comply with the new regulations, some exchanges are exploring alternatives to the Satoshi Test; These involve using end-to-end encrypted messages signed using the private key to confirm ownership of the wallet cryptographically for example via the WalletConnect Network. This preserves privacy and yet helps institutions to be compliant.

The core ethos of Bitcoin technology and cryptocurrencies is decentralization and privacy. Centralizing sensitive user data not only creates attractive targets for cybercriminals but also contradicts the principles that have driven the adoption of cryptocurrencies. The recent history of data breaches in the financial sector underscores the dangers of storing large amounts of personal data in centralized repositories.

“Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins”

The adage “Not your keys, not your coins” serves as a reminder of Bitcoin’s core philosophy: control over private keys equals control over assets. Users must carefully evaluate exchanges’ self-custody support, as cumbersome processes or centralized data storage undermine Bitcoin’s promise of financial freedom.

The TFR is only the beginning. Future legislation, like the proposed Payment Services Directive 3 (PSD3), signals growing regulatory scrutiny of Bitcoin self-custody. To preserve Bitcoin’s core values, the industry must proactively develop solutions that comply with regulations while protecting user privacy.

This is a pivotal moment for Bitcoin in Europe. Users should advocate for exchanges that prioritize self-custody and privacy-preserving measures. Exchanges, in turn, must innovate to comply with regulations while staying true to Bitcoin’s decentralized principles.

As Europe tightens its regulatory framework, the choices made by Bitcoin users, exchanges, and regulators will determine whether Bitcoin continues to empower individuals or becomes entangled in centralized systems. By championing privacy and self-custody, we can ensure Bitcoin remains a tool for financial sovereignty and freedom.

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

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As I explained in a Take two weeks ago, I think the threat (or promise, depending on your perspective) of protocol ossification is somewhat exaggerated, at least at this point in time.

Yes, the rate of soft forks has slowed down significantly over the years, the last one having been Taproot in 2021. But it seems this has more to do with a lack of interest in the potential upgrades that’ve been proposed since then, rather than it being due to the lack of a good process for deploying protocol upgrades. (Although that is not exactly a solved problem either.)

Bitcoin Core developers are generally funded on a no-strings-attached basis or outright volunteers, meaning they’re not required to work on any specific part of the codebase. As such, their time and energy will be dedicated to whatever they find most interesting or important to work on. So far, that hasn’t really been any of the soft fork proposals: the various covenant-style opcodes aren’t unequivocally perceived to offer the type of groundbreaking use cases that deserve prioritization, and while Drivechains sound great in theory, their major downside is still that miners can ultimately steal coins from them.

But even if Bitcoin Core developers aren’t interested, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to upgrade Bitcoin. For better or worse, anyone with the right skillset (admittedly not a very low bar) can always deploy a soft fork through an alternative client, even as a user activated soft fork (UASF). Yet, despite some rumblings from time to time, no one has done this yet.

I suspect this is at least in part because the proponents of these soft forks aren’t convinced a UASF would actually be successful. And if a UASF wouldn’t be successful, maybe the upgrade is not worth doing in the first place…

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Today, MicroStrategy announced it purchased an additional 15,400 bitcoin for approximately $1.5 billion. This brings its total holdings to over 400,000 BTC, almost 2% of the entire bitcoin supply.

MicroStrategy now owns 402,100 #bitcoin worth $38 BILLION

They now own almost 2% of the total bitcoin supply 🤯 pic.twitter.com/lbEpHNer7T

— Nikolaus Hoffman (@NikolausHoff) December 2, 2024

In the month of November, bitcoin rose almost 40% while MicroStrategy bought over $12 billion in bitcoin. In total, MicroStrategy now owns over $38 billion in bitcoin.

Other companies are now starting to copy the Microstrategy play book and run their strategy of accumulating bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. Saylor even presented to Microsoft’s CEO and board of directors on why they should adopt a bitcoin standard. Microsoft is the third largest company in the world by market cap, and is voting on whether or not they should add bitcoin to their balance sheet. Insane!

Publicly traded bitcoin miner MARA is also copying MicroStrategy’s playbook and announced today that they’re raising up to $805 million in debt to buy more bitcoin.

Do you get it yet?

This is not going to stop any time soon. We have officially entered a new era of bitcoin accumulation that is being led by these large corporations. Saylor, MicroStrategy, and other companies are going to scoop up every available coin they can get their hands on. And if they’re as convicted as MicroStrategy is — they’re not selling. That’s not even to mention the other big players now (BlackRock, Fidelity, ARK, etc) buying up coins for their ETFs. The amount of demand for bitcoin today is surreal.

Companies that adopted a Strategic #Bitcoin Reserve this month:

– Rumble
– LQR House
– Remixpoint
– Genius Group
– Cosmos Health
– Jiva Technologies
– Hoth Therapeutics
– Thumzup Media Corp
– Acurx Pharmaceuticals

And this is just the beginning 🚀 pic.twitter.com/6YW7D2DnRn

— Nikolaus Hoffman (@NikolausHoff) November 27, 2024

I think that everyone (this message is mainly for the newer Bitcoiners) should follow suit in adopting their own personal strategic bitcoin reserve for themselves and their families. I’m not saying or advising anyone to take on debt to buy bitcoin, but rather adopt it as your primary savings account and sit back and take in all the benefits of holding bitcoin — especially in regards to holding your own private keys.

The plan is simple: buy bitcoin, secure it safely, and hold it for the long term. If you sell, you will be selling directly into the hands of MicroStrategy and every other company running this playbook.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

We can’t live in a world where somebody starts a company that’s a completely legal thing, and then they literally [] get sanctioned [] and embargoed by the United States government through a completely unaccountable [process] by the way. No due process. None of this is written down. There’s no rules. There’s no court, there’s no decision process. There’s no appeal. Who do you appeal to, right? [] Who do you go to to get your bank account back? 

— Marc Andreessen, speaking to Joe Rogan, published on 11/26/2024

In yet another troubling manifestation of “Chokepoint 2.0,” a Wyoming company was summarily debanked in early November, 2024, by Mercury, a banking platform operated with Evolve Bank (and other banking partners). After years of seamless operations and exemplary service, Mercury abruptly terminated the account without clear cause. The excuse? A vague nod to “internal factors” that remain as opaque as the regulatory pressures likely behind them.

Let’s be clear: The company’s banking activity was uncontroversial. The only potential offense is that the company accepts a sizable portion of its customer payments in Bitcoin. Aside from monthly wires from Kraken (a regulated crypto exchange), its transactions included rent, utility payments, hardware store purchases, and subcontractor invoices.

The termination couldn’t have had anything to do with risky behavior or financial misconduct. Instead, the closure is emblematic of a systemic effort to hobble Bitcoin businesses by exploiting the centralized banking choke points regulators have turned into tools of suppression.

This is Chokepoint 2.0 in action. Regulators have found new ways to suppress industries they disfavor—this time, targeting Bitcoin miners and businesses. Instead of legislative debate or due process, unelected bureaucrats leverage their oversight of banks to nudge them into “de-risking” clients that engage in entirely legal activities. The company was simply collateral damage in the campaign to isolate Bitcoin from the traditional financial system.

This is a chilling echo of Operation Chokepoint 1.0, where federal regulators illegally pressured banks to cut off services to lawful but disfavored industries, such as firearms dealers and payday lenders. That campaign ended in disgrace when the FDIC was forced to settle a lawsuit in 2019. The settlement affirmed what should have been obvious: weaponizing the financial system against legal businesses is unconstitutional. Regulators know this—and yet here we are again.

Why This Matters

Debanking isn’t just an inconvenience. For businesses, it’s existential. Operating without a reliable banking partner in today’s economy is like trying to breathe without air. When banks are coerced into severing ties with Bitcoin-related companies, it sends a chilling message: engage in this industry at your peril. It also stifles innovation, a dangerous precedent for a country founded on economic freedom.

Moreover, this practice undermines the core tenet of fairness in financial services. The American banking system isn’t a private fiefdom. It operates under public charters and with public trust, and its gatekeepers should not act as arbiters of political or ideological purity.

The harm extends beyond Bitcoin. If regulators can throttle this industry, what stops them from targeting others? What happens when innovation, dissent, or inconvenient truths are deemed “too risky” for the comfort of entrenched powers? This is about more than Bitcoin—it’s about the integrity of the financial system and the preservation of free markets.

A Call to Action: Accountability for Regulators

The new Congress and Trump administration must seize this moment to hold the architects of Chokepoint 2.0 accountable. This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a constitutional one. Regulators acting as de facto lawmakers, imposing policies that would never survive public scrutiny, must be reigned in.

Investigations into Regulatory Overreach

Congress must launch comprehensive investigations into the agencies pressuring banks to sever ties with Bitcoin businesses. Who issued these directives? Under what authority? The American people deserve answers, and the offending parties deserve consequences.

Personal Accountability for Regulators

Bureaucrats who abuse their power should not be shielded by the anonymity of the regulatory machine. Those responsible for weaponizing the financial system against lawful businesses must be named, shamed, and removed from their positions, permanently lose any security clearances they may have, and potentially lose their government pensions and retirement benefits.

Restoration of Due Process

Any decisions to restrict banking access should require clear, codified standards and a transparent appeals process. No more shadow rules. If a business is to be debanked, the reasons should be public, defensible, clearly articulated & defined, grounded in law, and appealable.

Legislation to Protect Financial Access

Congress should pass laws prohibiting banks from discriminating against lawful industries based on political or ideological reasons. The free market thrives on neutrality; it withers under bias.

Decentralization of Financial Systems

Bitcoin exists as a hedge against precisely this kind of overreach. Policymakers should embrace and encourage its growth, not fight it. America cannot afford to fall behind in the global race for financial innovation.

Much of the above could be addressed through Section 10 of the SAFER Banking Act, which directly limits undue regulatory influence over banking services. Specifically, it prohibits federal banking agencies from pressuring financial institutions to terminate relationships with lawful businesses, including those in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry, based on reputational risks or political motivations. This provision reinforces the principle that decisions about financial services should rely on risk-based analysis of individual accounts rather than blanket biases against entire industries. By codifying such protections, the SAFER Banking Act would promote fairness and transparency in financial services, ensuring that regulators adhere to their duties of impartial oversight while respecting the rights of businesses operating legally under state or federal law.

In addition to legislative solutions, the presence of even one bank with the willingness and capability to resist undue regulatory pressure could dramatically reshape the financial landscape for Bitcoin businesses. Caitlin Long’s Custodia Bank, based in Wyoming, exemplifies this potential. Custodia has consistently demonstrated its commitment to operating within the law while challenging the overreach of federal regulators, as seen in its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve.

A bank with this level of resolve, direct access to the Federal Reserve itself, and a proven track record of standing up to regulators will provide a lifeline for Bitcoin (and other) businesses seeking reliable financial services. By fostering an ecosystem where lawful businesses can thrive without fear of arbitrary debanking, Custodia Bank offers a template for how other institutions might follow suit, ensuring that innovation and economic freedom remain protected.1

Taken together, the SAFER Banking Act and the perseverance of institutions like Custodia Bank represent two critical fronts in the fight against financial discrimination. While the SAFER Act provides a legislative framework to curtail regulatory overreach and protect lawful businesses from debanking, it has faced significant resistance, having been introduced multiple times in Congress only to be repeatedly blocked. Meanwhile, Custodia Bank’s struggle underscores the severity of institutional hostility; the Federal Reserve’s refusal to grant Custodia access to the banking system forced the bank to file a federal lawsuit just to claim its rightful place in the financial ecosystem. These challenges highlight the entrenched opposition to reform, but they also emphasize the urgent need for a multi-pronged strategy—legislative, judicial, and entrepreneurial—to ensure fair and impartial access to banking services for all lawful businesses.

Bitcoiners: The Frontline of Freedom

Bitcoin isn’t just money; it’s an idea—an idea that money and power belong to the people, not the state. This is why we’re here. This is why Bitcoin exists. The legacy financial system is crumbling under its own corruption, and every act of suppression only underscores the need for decentralized alternatives.

To be clear, I don’t fully blame Mercury and Evolve for this. They’re likely being forced into it by their regulators.2 Indeed, due to the Orwellian Bank Secrecy Act, the banks aren’t allowed to disclose the reasons for these matters to the affected customers. Banks like Mercury, and any others who have willingly cooperated with Chokepoint 2.0 should be subject to Congressional Subpoenas to explain themselves, and also name-and-shame the regulators who coopted them.

The future of Bitcoin—and America’s role as a leader in innovation—depends on exposing and dismantling Chokepoint 2.0, and holding all those who participated in it accountable.

1 Of course, Custodia Bank having a master account doesn’t eliminate the possibility of governmental censorship, but it does force it to be direct and open, rather than the indirect, hidden, and unappealable route the regulators can take now. See this x-post by Caitlin Long.

2 Another reason to believe that, in the case of Mercury and Evolve, the regulators are responsible, is that Evolve Bank was penalized in June 2024 by the Federal Reserve, and likely forced into these actions by their overreaching and overreactive regulators as part of that penalty.

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