Great read... Bitcoin Has a Squatter Problem. BIP 110 Is the Eviction Notice. Why a temporary soft fork is the most important thing happening in Bitcoin right now, and why the FUD about it is dead wrong.

Bitcoin Has a Squatter Problem. BIP 110 Is the Eviction Notice.

Why a temporary soft fork is the most important thing happening in Bitcoin right now, and why the FUD about it is dead wrong.

"You can’t open your own private mint moving that kind of liquidity and hope to stay under the regulatory radar."-- Roy Sheinfeld Stablecoins are experiencing explosive growth, yet they largely repackage the traditional financial system in crypto form rather than revolutionizing it. As Roy Sheinfeld argues, their inherent centralization—both in value backing and operations—inevitably invites heavy regulation, much like banks. The true transformation isn't technological but monetary: while stablecoins remain tied to state-controlled fiat and its oversight, Bitcoin's decentralized, permissionless nature allows it to escape such constraints. In the long-term battle for practical utility, Bitcoin holds the edge. Great article: Stablecoins: Evolution, not a Revolution

Bitcoin Magazine

Stablecoins: Evolution, Not A Revolution

Stablecoins are ultimately capped by a ceiling that Bitcoin is positioned to smash right through. They are not an existential threat to Bitcoin.

"Bitcoin is a lifeline. It is a money that cannot be shut down. Native money for the internet. But what happens when the internet gets shut off?" Iran's rial has plummeted in value—effectively a near-total collapse—sparking nationwide protests, which the regime has met with a brutal crackdown killing thousands and a near-complete internet blackout that severed 98% of connectivity, isolating millions from the outside world. In Uganda, authorities similarly shut down the internet just before a pivotal election to suppress dissent and control information flow. Yet in both cases, hundreds of thousands of people still manage to communicate and organize through resilient workarounds like mesh networks, offline apps, satellite tools, or decentralized messaging—highlighting the stark test Bitcoin's censorship-resistant promise faces when authoritarian regimes dismantle the very internet infrastructure it relies on for transactions, wallets, and peer-to-peer transfers. Great article from the Financial Freedom Report: Financial Freedom Report #104

Human Rights Foundation

Financial Freedom Reports

HRF’s Financial Freedom Report is a weekly newsletter that exposes how authoritarian regimes weaponize money—and how Bitcoin and other freedom ...

Keep is in Zapstore

App Details - Zapstore

Keep: FROST threshold signer for Android Keep is a FROST threshold signing app and dedicated Nostr event signer for Android. It allows users to hold FROST key shares on their phone and sign Nostr events without any single device ever holding the full private key. Keep implements the NIP-55 Android Signer protocol and NIP-46 remote signing, so any compatible Nostr client can request signatures directly. Like Amber, Keep serves as a dedicated Nostr event signer that keeps private key material segregated from client apps. Both implement NIP-55 and NIP-46 with per-app permissions, background signing, and multiple account support. Keep goes further by splitting keys into FROST threshold shares (2-of-3, 3-of-5, etc.) so that no single device ever holds the complete private key.

GitHub

GitHub - privkeyio/keep-android: Android app for FROST threshold signing with NIP-55 support

Android app for FROST threshold signing with NIP-55 support - privkeyio/keep-android

My node is BIP-110 ready

The Secret of Oz - a Bill Still documentary This is an old documentary exposing the true meaning of the book "Wizard of Oz".

Adoption - U.S. Bitcoin Merchants Top 5,300 in Steady Growth BTC Map, a community-driven project, tracks verified cafes, shops, and services taking Bitcoin—often via the fast Lightning Network—with California leading at 705, Texas at 543, and Florida at 389. https://wickedsmartbitcoin.com/btcmap_us

The FBI treats Bitcoin as money to catch money launderers, while the IRS views it as property to collect taxes. Meanwhile, the SEC calls it a security to regulate exchanges, and the CFTC labels it a commodity to keep it from being used as everyday cash.

Self-custodial Bitcoin Lightning wallet for AI agents. Use when the agent needs to send or receive bitcoin payments, check its balance, generate invoices, or manage its wallet. Supports bolt11, bolt12, LNURL, and lightning addresses. Zero config — one command to initialize.

ClawHub

Agent Wallet — ClawHub

Self-custodial Bitcoin Lightning wallet for AI agents. Use when the agent needs to send or receive bitcoin payments, check its balance, generate in...

Uber Option Request rides and pay with Bitcoin using Cashu ecash. Built on Nostr for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer ridesharing.

GitHub

GitHub - variablefate/ridestr: nostr rideshare

nostr rideshare. Contribute to variablefate/ridestr development by creating an account on GitHub.

🇨🇳 Chinese President Xi Jinping calls for the yuan to become a global reserve currency.🇺🇸💪 A key part of transitioning away from the current fiat global reserve currency toward sound money (like gold or Bitcoin) involves letting some other country take on the burdensome role of issuer of the next fiat reserve currency — essentially making them the one left holding the bag (or the 'sucker').

In the future, every person will have their own personal AGI agent — fully secure, end-to-end encrypted, and protected by multisignature cryptographic keys that you control. This agent could seamlessly integrate with or be uploaded into various physical platforms to serve you directly. For example: - It could connect to your electric vehicle (like a Tesla) to handle autonomous transportation, route planning, errands, or even ownership-related decisions. - It could inhabit or link to a dedicated personal humanoid robot (such as something like Tesla's Optimus) to safeguard your home, manage household tasks, provide care, run security, or assist with daily life. The core idea is a truly sovereign, private superintelligent companion that's cryptographically yours alone — extending your reach into both digital and physical worlds while keeping everything under your multisig-secured control.

Happy anniversary to the Silk Road era! Celebrating the day that changed Bitcoin forever.

Tether Announces the Launch of USA₮, the Federally Regulated, Dollar-Backed Stablecoin, Made in America

Tether Announces the Launch of USA₮, the Federally Regulated, Dollar-Backed Stablecoin, Made in America - Tether.io

27 January 2026 – Tether, the largest company in the digital asset industry, today announces the official launch of USA₮, the federally regulat...

Bitcoin stands as the 21st-century's ultimate private store of value—protecting human (and humanoid) wealth across time better than anything else—while serving as sound, digital money that's perfectly suited for transferring value seamlessly across space.

🇺🇸 Treasury Secretary Bessent says Federal Reserve independence "does not mean no oversight."💪🇺🇸 Now Time to expose the fraud at the Fed and all central banks around the world.

"If you are not paying for it, you are the product. And if it is a political system, the product that they are buying is control over you." What if a government-promoted "free" digital currency—like the UAE's Digital Dirham, now rolling out in phases with a full integration targeted for 2026—seems like a convenient upgrade to cash, but actually enables unprecedented total surveillance and centralized control over every transaction? These **central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)** promise efficiency and inclusion, yet they come with the risk of governments tracking spending in real time, potentially programmable to restrict purchases, freeze accounts, or enforce compliance—echoing sneaky inflation tactics through easier monetary manipulation and drawing parallels to outright financial repression seen in places like Iran, where the Digital Rial (already piloted and launched) has been explicitly designed for easy tracking, dissident monitoring, and tighter state grip on money flows amid sanctions and repression. While such systems lure people in with promises of seamless payments, Bitcoin and other open-source, decentralized tools offer a powerful counter: - censorship-resistant money that individuals truly control - free from intermediary seizure or oversight - empowering us to resist the trap of surveillance disguised as progress. The real question is whether we'll buy into the illusion of convenient control or actively build our own financial freedom through decentralized alternatives. Read HRF’s latest Financial Freedom Report #104 Link:

Human Rights Foundation

HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #104

Good morning readers, We begin this week in Iran, where currency collapse has turned into a call for political change. Across the country, mass pro...

FROSTR (

Frostr

takes advantage of Schnorr signatures—which are much more flexible than the old standard—to allow multiple people to share control of a single Nostr account. It uses a method called FROST to let a group (like 2-out-of-3 people) sign off on posts or actions directly through Nostr. This is a brilliant approach because it allows for easy key updates and better security. It’s very similar to the enterprise-grade tools we are building at PrivKey.io.

Every feeling that moves inside you is born from one of two ancient roots. One root is love — quiet, steady love for what is good, what is true, what is beautiful, or for the people and duties you care for. When this root grows strong, it becomes joy, gratitude, courage, patience, kindness. The other root is fear — fear of losing something, fear of not getting something, fear that the world is unsafe or that you are not enough. When this root grows, it becomes anger, jealousy, worry, sadness that clings, desire that hurts. The wise person watches his heart like a gardener watches his plants. He asks quietly: “Is this feeling watered by love… or by fear?” Then he tends only the plant of love, and lets the fear-root wither from neglect. That is the whole work. Not to feel nothing — but to feel what comes from the better root.

Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T all experienced major nationwide outages at the same time. When your SMS-based 2FA stops working because of these carrier outages, the best alternatives are using an authenticator app (like Google Authenticator, Authy, or Microsoft Authenticator) or a hardware security key such as a YubiKey.