The Bitcoin Minimalist Week 2 - Taro on Lightning, CPI, and Sanctions

The bear market continues, but signs of adoption are everywhere

In this week’s edition:

• CPI print

• OFAC sanctions

• Lightning and Taro updates

• More adoption by sanctioned and non-sanctioned countries

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News

CPI Prints 8.5%

After multiple consecutive rises in CPI, the metric showed a somewhat lower print than the previous period. It is yet to be seen if this is enough for the FED to slow tightening in rates. Although the overall CPI is down, food at home is up to 13.1%, and electricity is up to 15.2%.

The US Rewards Companies $1.5 Billion To Cut Methane Emissions

The Inflation Reduction Act creates a program that incentives companies to cut methane emissions. Flare gas Bitcoin miners could benefit directly from this. - Source: The Washington Post.

Crypto Graffiti Released New Bitcoin Miner Art

The piece released called ‘Minedala’ was built with S9 parts and has a fully functional underclocked S9 miner in the back. It is currently up for auction!

OFAC Sanctions Open Source Software

In May of last year, Marathon decided it would try and mine OFAC compliment blocks, transactions that are from sanctioned addresses. It succeeded in the block, but transactions went through other miners and ultimately failed. On Monday, OFAC released a list of sanctioned Ethereum addresses from the mixer Tornado Cash.

As the event unfolded, the founder of Tornado Cash was suspended from Github, while the centralized node runner Infura froze users. As well, an anonymous individual gathered .eth addresses from celebrities and famous Twitter accounts and dusted their accounts from tornado cash addresses.

It should be noted that this could happen to Bitcoin. But, is much harder, if not impossible, to sanction such a decentralized system.

Iran Makes $10M Purchase Of Goods Using Cryptocurrency

The report mentions that this could be to circumvent US sanctions. It is unclear what cryptocurrency they used, but likely a large one, possibly bitcoin, considering they needed $10M in liquidity.

Price

The current price of Bitcoin as of writing is $24,000. A spike of around $900 happened after the CPI printed below the previous mark at 8.5%, signaling some hope for a risk-on pivot from the FED.

bitbo.io

The adoption of Lightning continues to grow, even as Bitcoin’s bear market continues.

Glassnode.com

Tweets of the week

Tuur on Bitcoin Maximalism

Tuur Demeester @TuurDemeester

My take of bitcoin maximalism is that it’s a belief in a winner-take-all outcome of these monetary protocol wars, and in bitcoin’s path dependence and network effects. I don’t see what’s stupid or disgusting about that.

Bitcoin Mining Creates New Efficiencies

Jaran Mellerud @JMellerud

Yesterday I explained to my parents how #bitcoin mining generates heat. My mother instantly asked me if I could install a bitcoin mining machine inside her greenhouse to extend the growing season of her tomato plants. She gets it.

Traction in Brazil

Watcher.Guru @WatcherGuru

🇧🇷 Central Bank of Brazil Director says #Bitcoin is financial innovation.

What to read

A Look At The Lightning Network: “Specifically, it focuses on the scaling method of the Bitcoin network as its main example, … to see why a layered approach makes the most sense.” - Lyn Alden

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Finding Signal In A Noisy World: “These protocols create value in the form of a new foundation that emerges slowly and methodically. Protocols are built in layers,…” - Jeff Booth

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Decentralizing Global FX With Taro: How Bitcoin Renders "Cross-Border" Payments Obsolete - Lightning Labs

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