Greetings Bitcoiners! First off, happy new year! 2025 is behind us, and was another unique year in many respects. As I reflect on each year I experience as an adult, I'm reminded of the old expression, "may you live in interesting times." Here are some things that 2025 brought us in the realm of Bitcoin: 📈 The Four-Year Cycle Broke: The widely known and widely expected 4 year price cycle broke: the meme is "3 greens and 1 red", referring to yearly historical price candles. Up 2011, 2012, 2013, down 2014. Up 2015, 2016, 2017, down 2018. Up 2019, 2020, 2021, down 2022. Up 2023, 2024, then down for 2025? BTCUSD did indeed end the year lower than it started, however if you compare 2025 against the other down years, it looks more like a flat year than a down year. Those other three red years each booked USD losses of over 50%, whereas 2025 was down by a mere 6%. Bitcoin breaking these patterns is to be expected. People are pattern recognizing machines. Pattern recognition was a very valuable tool in caveman times...the human who recognized that seeing bear cubs is correlated with a mother bear being in the vicinity was likely to be better off than the human who didn't. The pattern recognition abilities engrained in us over generations is prone to errors, though. People can sometimes think they see patterns where none actually exist. Did a 4 year cycle pattern exist historically for BTCUSD? Yes. Should you base your decisions on such a pattern continuing into the future? No. Stay humble, stack sats, and stack skills. 🧾 Square Made Bitcoin Easier for Merchants: Square rolled out native Bitcoin support for its POS systems. That means small businesses can now accept bitcoin with just a few taps. Want to spend sats locally? Check btcmap.org to find merchants near you. This is how circular economies grow! ⚖️ Samourai Developers Sentenced: The Samourai developers were sentenced and imprisoned. This is probably the darkest news in the space for 2025. See the newsletter from Dec 17th for a deeper dive into the details. A silver lining: these guys were pretty divisive in the space prior to their 2024 arrest. Many bitcoiners were fans, many weren't. The flame wars got hot between different coinjoin wallet teams in 2019-2021, and there was other drama over the years too. 2025 saw bitcoiners come together in support of Rodriguez and Hill, and in a strong voice called out an injustice levied upon two of their own. 🔑 Proof of Keys Day — January 3: This month marks the eighth Proof of Keys Day celebration. What's Proof of Keys Day, you ask? Trace Mayer, an OG bitcoiner with a somewhat complicated history, started promoting Proof of Keys Day in late 2018, to coincide with Genesis Block Day (celebrating the anniversary of the first block being mined in 2009) on January 3rd. One of the mantras in Bitcoin is "not your keys, not your coins". One of my favorite quotes from Satoshi: “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” The core power of bitcoin is that it can be used in a sovereign way, AKA without having to trust someone else to send or receive a payment on your behalf. When bitcoin is held on an exchange, you're trusting the exchange in multiple ways: That they're actually acquiring the bitcoin on your behalf, instead of, say, Bermuda real estate for themselves (FTX) That the bitcoin they're acquiring isn't being held by a single person, who might end up dying under mysterious circumstances (Quadriga CX) That they are storing their giant stack of bitcoin in a way that's not vulnerable to hackers (Bitfinex) That they'll actually send you your bitcoin when you ask for it That they haven't been running a fractional reserve, planning that they can conceal the fact so long as enough people don't request withdrawals at one time Proof of Keys Day has the effect of lowering the tide for exchanges, so everyone can see who's actually been swimming naked. Participating in Proof of Keys Day is easy for you and I, easy for solvent exchanges, and a nightmare for fraudulent exchanges. All you have to do is, if you have bitcoin on an exchange, withdraw it into your own custody on January 3rd. The exchange says that you have 2 million sats, right? That's what they're showing you on their screen, anyway. Prove it! Send the sats. A caveat: be comfortable and confident in your self-custody setup prior to withdrawing your hodl stack to your own wallet. Even though it's Proof of Keys Day today, if you're not comfortable and confident in your self-custody setup, it's not advisable to send your hodl stack. Start with a small amount, and become comfortable and confident with your setup. Keep stacking skills and building confidence! If you've never withdrawn from an exchange before, this can be a learning experience for you as well. Does your exchange have a daily/weekly/monthly withdrawal limit? Are withdrawals free of charge, or do they charge a withdrawal fee? Going through the process teaches you about your exchange's processes. Next event is our monthly coffee meetup. January's cafe is Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg. Come and join us at 1pm on Sunday, Jan 25th, 2026! Denim now accepts bitcoin, payable through any lightning enabled wallet. Keep stacking sats, keep stacking skills. @Lonelypumpkins Bitcoin in the Burg Provide value to others Spend less than you earn Save in a money that can't be printed by someone else for free

Announcement: Dec coffee meetup, originally scheduled at Denim Mechanicsburg for Sun, Dec 28th, has been postponed. Stay tuned for announcements about 2026 events!

Greetings bitcoiners! Our next meetup is a monthly coffee event, which we're holding the fourth Sunday of every month at varying locations. This month is at Denim Coffee in downtown Mechanicsburg. With Square's new seamless integration of bitcoin payments into their terminals, Denim is now accepting bitcoin! Check out btcmap.org for other Square businesses also accepting bitcoin. Come join us on Sun, Dec 28th, at 1pm! This week, the first of the two Samourai wallet developers will be reporting to prison to begin serving his 5 year sentence. Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill are the brains and brawn behind Samourai wallet, a mobile bitcoin wallet that bitcoiners have been using for a decade. Like other self-custody wallet software, such as Sparrow, Blue Wallet, and Nunchuk, Samourai doesn't take custody of funds. A key feature of such software is that the bitcoin remains in your own custody the whole time. The developers have no involvement, nor do they have even the ability to be involved, with whatever transactions the wallet makes. A difference between Samourai and these other wallets: their developers had a penchant for writing spicy tweets. It's the persona that the developers maintained online, and the notoriety they achieved among the community, that made them targets. People who champion the promotion of bitcoin's NGU (number go up) property tend to be very well-known, even outside the bitcoin space. Champions of promoting bitcoin's other wonderful property, FGU (freedom go up), tend to not be as well-known. The Samourai devs can be thought of as the tip of the spear, so to speak, of the FGU crowd within bitcoin. Bitcoin is for anyone, of course, and there are many others who also promote FGU; Samourai were among the loudest of the bitcoiner voices who publicly advocated for privacy being a fundamental human right, and made privacy tools within bitcoin easier to use and more accessible. Calling Samourai money transmitters is like calling Hallmark money transmitters because they make cards and envelopes that people use to send cash, and every $5 that a grandparent sends to their grandkids is unlawful. Would the justice system go after Microsoft if they learned that a drug dealer had used Excel? Keonne, who actually lives in Western PA, has been on several podcasts recently. Coin Stories, TFTC, and The Bitcoin Way are a few that have interviewed him. I really want to believe that our justice system operates in good faith, and would never crucify someone based on political convenience or an incentive to bolster one's portfolio of prosecutions, even when evidence points to the accused being innocent of the crimes of which they've been charged. This sequence of events makes me think otherwise though. Don't take my word for it...please listen and decide for yourself. Keonne Rodriguez on Coin Stories:  TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast: #692: Free Samourai with Keonne Rodriguez 

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TFTC is a podcast hosted by Marty Bent about Bitcoin. Join Marty, Editor in Chief of "the best newsletter in Bitcoin", as he sits down to d...

Both Bill and Keonne plead guilty to one of the two charges, with the other being dropped as part of the deal. The details of why they thought a plea deal was in their best interest is explained in the pods. At this stage of the game, a presidential pardon is their only shot. There's a link to a petition on https://billandkeonne.org if you're interested.  The intent of putting these people in a pillory for all to see is to make an example of them. They want people to be fearful about developing software that increases privacy, using such software, or more broadly, living their life in a way which every detail of their lives isn't exposed for all to see. Something tells me that the prosecutors of this case, as well as the judge, have curtains or blinds on their windows. There's even a chance that they close the door when they're in the bathroom. Why? Because privacy is a fundamental human right. Keep stacking sats, keep stacking skills. Hope to see you on Sunday, Dec 28th, at Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg! @Lonelypumpkins Bitcoin in the Burg 1. Provide value to others 2. Spend less than you earn 3. Save in a money that can't be printed by someone else for free

Greetings bitcoiners! We have a coffee meetup this coming Sunday, Nov 23rd, 1pm at Elementary Coffee in Harrisburg. This is a new location for us that we're looking forward to trying. Hope you can make it! Keep stacking sats...keep stacking skills Bitcoin in the Burg 1. Provide value to others 2. Spend less than you earn 3. Save in a money that can't be printed by someone else for free

Greetings Bitcoiners! Thanks to those who came out for our hike and wings event last weekend! It was an awesome day for it, and we hiked even further than intended, reaching the Peters Mountain Shelter. Total distance ended up being about six miles. Bravo! We've got two more events on the books for 2025, both bitcoin & coffee events. We're going to be planning on having a coffee event on the fourth Sunday of each month, and our goal is to alternate locations month by month. In two weeks, on Sun, Nov 23rd, we'll be meeting at Elementary Coffee in Harrisburg (flyer attached). Then, for December, we'll be at Denim in Mechanicsburg. Hope you can make it! Last week, the current executive administration, as confirmed by the FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency), is working on a plan to make 50 year mortgages a thing in the US. Why would they want to do this? Because home ownership is becoming increasingly out of reach for the majority of the country, and longer loan terms make for lower monthly payments. Fun fact...15 and 30 year fixed rate mortgages are not naturally existing products. As Americans, it seems like they are, since they've been around and available to us for our entire lives, however they don't really exist outside of the US. In most of the world, if you want to get a mortgage with greater than a 10 year term, ARM's (adjustable rate mortgages) are your only option. A little real estate finance 101 lesson: as opposed to a fixed rate mortgage, whose interest rate stays the same for the entire duration of the loan, the interest rate of an ARM adjusts on certain intervals to come more in line with current rates. For example, a 5/1 ARM means that the advertised rate will hold for the first 5 years of the term, and then adjust every 1 year thereafter, to a rate that's more in line with current rates. This can mean that your mortgage payment can potentially increase substantially on a given year...anyone who signed up for an ARM prior to 2020 can attest to that. ARM's are lower risk for the lender, since they periodically sync up closer to current rates, which is what banks are paying interest on. So why are long term fixed rate mortgages a thing in the US? Who's on the other side of the deal with all of these people who have them? If you guessed Uncle Sam, you're right. The US government creates the required demand for long term mortgage paper, buying them through government sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's a great deal for banks...they can sign people up for long term fixed rate mortgages, collect all the fees and closing costs incurred, then sell them to Uncle Sam. This creates (artificial) demand for 30 year paper, which allows certain Americans to finance home purchases on longer fixed rate terms than naturally exists through supply and demand forces. Why is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac willing to step in and buy this paper? It's another way of money printing, and it keeps the music playing in our game of economic musical chairs. Because of constant dollar debasement, people use real estate as a store of value. This makes home prices vastly exceed their utility value. In 1970, it took 2.4 years of median US income to purchase a median US house. Said another way, if the average US worker wanted to pay cash for a house, they'd have to save their whole income for 2.4 years to buy it. How about now? The trend is definitely intact...that figure is now 9.1 years, over 3x the 1970 levels. If it were 2x, that means that the home that could be purchased by a single income household now takes a dual income household to purchase. Even with dual incomes, we can afford less home today than we could with a single earner family in 1970. A 50 year mortgage would make for slightly lower monthly payments for a home compared to a 30 year loan. However, that it's even being brought up is symptomatic of how distorted our economy is in the US. A tale of two economies...2024 marked two new highs for Americans: more Americans than ever before vacationed internationally, and more Americans than ever before visited a food bank. Financial machinations such as the 50 year mortgage will perpetuate this bifurcation. Keep stacking sats, keep stacking skills! @Lonelypumpkins Bitcoin in the Burg 1. Provide value to others 2. Spend less than you earn 3. Save in a money that can't be printed by someone else for free

Great hiking event yesterday! Coffee hang scheduled for 2 weeks from today.

Greetings Bitcoiners! Weather is looking good for our hiking event this weekend! I'm seeing an expected forecast of 64°F and partly cloudy on Saturday. Hoping for a good showing on Saturday. If this is your first event, great choice! We're very beginner friendly, and the leaves are right in their autumn sweet spot. Come enjoy some PA fall foliage when it's at its best! We'll be gathering at the parking lot, and plan on starting our hike toward Table Rock View at 9am. If you aren't making it to the hike and want to do lunch afterward, let me know and I can keep you posted as to when we're heading over to Boro. Hope to see you on Saturday! Peters Mountain Appalachian Trail 2300 Peters Mountain Rd Halifax, PA 17032 40°24'43.1"N 76°55'48.6"W What3words: enchanting.endearing.keys Boro Bar & Grille 4425 N Front St Harrisburg, PA 17110

Hike and lunch on the East Shore...Sat, Nov 8th. We'll be hiking from the Peters Mountain parking area to Table Rock View and back, an easy/moderate 4.3 mile hike. Afterwards, lunch at Boro Bar & Grille. Hope to see you there!