cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/49294991

Key Takeaways

• Trezor will end authorization for selected resellers on January 1, 2027, to strengthen supply chain oversight.

• Ledger confirmed that a tampered wallet contained an implant capable of exposing recovery phrases through a mobile connection.

• Reports of suspicious devices have spread to Europe, but Ledger says confirmed incidents remain limited to Southeast Asia.

Why Trezor Is Tightening Its Reseller Network

Hardware wallet maker Trezor is reducing the number of authorized resellers it works with following a security incident involving rival company Ledger. The move is intended to give Trezor better control over how its devices are handled before they reach customers.

In a letter to selected retail partners, Trezor Chief Commercial Officer Danny Sanders said their authorization would end on January 1, 2027. The company has also stopped sending new stock to affected sellers, although they can continue selling their existing inventory during the Black Friday and Christmas shopping seasons.

Trezor said the decision was a precaution and stressed that there is no evidence its own devices have been compromised. “Let us be very clear: there is not a single piece of evidence that Trezor devices have been compromised,” the company said.

Trezor said it wants to work with fewer resellers so it can check them more closely. The company plans to introduce stricter requirements and inspect how its remaining partners source, store and handle devices.

The decision follows reports that criminals installed unauthorized electronic components inside Ledger hardware wallets sold through resellers in Southeast Asia, which has now spread to Europe and South America as well.

“A hardware wallet is only as safe as the path it travels to reach its owner,” Sanders wrote in his letter.

Trezor has not disclosed how many resellers will lose their authorization or which markets will be affected. The company said the changes do not mean that the affected sellers did anything wrong or that their existing stock is unsafe.

Sanders also apologized to retailers that would lose their partnerships, recognizing the impact on smaller businesses. “I know what that means for a small business... I am sorry,” he wrote.

“This decision says nothing about your effort or the way you represented us.” Trezor said the aim is to improve supply chain security by making it easier to monitor devices as they move from the manufacturer to the customer.

Ledger has confirmed that at least one customer's hardware wallet contained an unauthorized hardware implant. The confirmed cases of stolen digital assets have been linked to devices sold by CryptoBilis, a reseller operating in Southeast Asia.

A hardware wallet protects the private keys used to access and spend digital assets like bitcoin. During setup, it displays a recovery phrase, usually made up of 12 or 24 words. Anyone who obtains this phrase can potentially access the wallet's funds, even without the physical device.

According to Ledger's security team, known as Ledger Donjon, there was an unauthorized implant placed inside the device that could read information displayed on its screen. It could then send the recovery phrase to an attacker over a mobile network using an LTE connection and an embedded SIM card.

This means a wallet could appear to work normally while secretly exposing the recovery phrase during setup.

Ledger said the implant does not modify the device's Secure Element, the chip designed to protect sensitive information, or its operating system. It also does not change transactions or digital signatures.

Blockchain investigators have estimated that the incident may have caused losses ranging from tens of millions of dollars to more than $100 million. However, Ledger has not confirmed the total number of victims or the amount stolen.

The investigation expanded after users reported finding suspicious components inside Ledger devices purchased outside Southeast Asia.

In Germany, a customer reportedly discovered an implant in a device bought through European retail. MediaMarktSaturn, the electronics retailer behind MediaMarkt and Saturn, subsequently suspended sales of Ledger wallets in its stores and online.

Ledger confirmed the suspension on October 13 and said no customer funds had been reported lost in the German case.

Mark Karpelès, the former chief executive of the collapsed Mt. Gox exchange, also reported examining a Ledger Flex purchased at Singapore's Changi Airport.

Other users have shared photographs showing extra wires and electronic components inside devices.

However, these reports have not all been independently verified or linked to the confirmed CryptoBilis cases.

Ledger said it has not verified any digital asset theft linked to a device purchased outside the confirmed cases. The company is continuing to examine devices and investigate where the tampering took place.

In another post on October 13, Ledger asked resellers and distributors in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to suspend sales of its devices while the investigation continues.

The request covers Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Resellers were asked to remove Ledger products from their shelves.

Ledger said all confirmed incidents remain limited to Southeast Asia. It also said there is no indication that its internal systems, services or direct sales channel have been compromised.

CryptoBilis has stopped selling hardware wallets while the investigation continues. Ledger advised customers who bought devices through CryptoBilis not to set up unused wallets.

The UK government has strengthened its chances of retaining a $5 billion Bitcoin haul after the High Court in London ruled that Chinese law should determine whether thousands of victims of a fraud can claim crypto seized from Zhimin Qian, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.

The Zhimin Qian case is the UK's largest crypto seizure and money-laundering prosecution, involving more than 61,000 BTC linked to a Chinese Ponzi scheme that caused about £600 million in losses for over 128,000 investors between 2014 and 2017.

Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, fled China using false documents and attempted to launder the proceeds in the UK through property purchases and Bitcoin. She was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months in November 2025, while two associates received prison sentences for money laundering and assisting her.

The remaining dispute concerns the fate of the seized Bitcoin. The new ruling could make it harder for victims to recover their hoard, which has appreciated substantially since the fraud.

English law could have allowed claimants to argue that the Bitcoin belonged to them, rather than treating them as creditors, but Mr Justice Mark Turner ruled that Chinese law should apply because the alleged fraud, financial losses and related contractual relationships originated in China.

The decision does not determine who will ultimately receive the assets, but thousands of victims must now demonstrate that they have legally recognized rights to the Bitcoin under Chinese law to stop the state from keeping the assets.

If the victims cannot establish the required property rights, the British government could retain much of the Bitcoin windfall, potentially benefiting public finances. Prosecutors have previously said the victims could receive compensation through a redress scheme administered in China.

The case will nevertheless continue in the High Court in London, where expert evidence on Chinese law will be considered unless the ruling is overturned on appeal. Law firm Fieldfisher, which represents the claimants, said it was pursuing an appeal, while the CPS said a further hearing would determine how the law applies and whether any victims can establish an interest in the Bitcoin.

ESMA backs self-custody protections but proposes tighter oversight for crypto platforms that connect users to decentralized finance protocols.

Europe is reviewing its crypto rulebook less than two years after it took full effect. Most of the debate concerns stablecoins, tokenization and the shape of DeFi.

One question, buried deep in a long technical consultation, matters more to Bitcoiners than most: could MiCA reach the wallet software in your pocket? The answer is not settled. But the early responses point in a clear direction.

The Question in the Consultation

The European Commission opened its targeted consultation on the review of MiCA on May 20, 2026. The deadline was later extended to September 30.

The relevant text sits in Question 64, part of a section on possible certification schemes for DeFi protocols. Respondents were asked to rate their agreement with a series of statements.

Two concern wallets directly.

The first: developers offering non-custodial wallets should be required to obtain a certificate before making those wallets available to the public.

The second: those developers should instead be incentivized to obtain one. The difference is not cosmetic. A mandatory certificate is a gate. Software that has not passed through it cannot lawfully reach users. An incentive leaves the gate open and rewards those who choose to walk through a different door.

The next question raises the stakes further. Question 65 asks, among other things, whether CASPs should be prevented from connecting clients to protocols that lack certification. Read together, the two questions show how a scheme described as voluntary could still shape market access in practice.

Why Custody Is the Hinge

MiCA regulates custody as a service provided to clients. In broad terms, that means safekeeping or controlling crypto assets, or the means of access to them such as private keys, on behalf of someone else.

A developer who publishes non-custodial wallet software does none of that. The user generates and holds the keys. The developer never sees them, cannot move funds and cannot freeze them.

That is why mandatory certification for wallet developers would be a conceptual shift, not technical adjustment. It would attach a regulatory requirement to the act of writing and distributing software, rather than to the act of holding or controlling someone else’s assets.

Industry Pushes Back

Two industry bodies took that point directly.

The French digital asset association Adan opposes mandatory certification for non-custodial wallet software. Its argument is that such a wallet gives its developer neither custody nor discretionary control over users’ assets, so publishing the software should not, on its own, amount to providing a crypto-asset service.

Adan supports voluntary certification instead, on the condition that it stays genuinely voluntary and does not turn into a market access requirement through the back door. The association frames its whole response around one principle: regulation should follow effective control and real risk.

The Global Blockchain Business Council takes a similar line. It strongly disagrees with mandatory certification and favors a voluntary, outcome-based approach.

It also argues that software providers should not face CASP authorization simply because their technology supports crypto transactions, where they do not independently control client assets.

The common thread is simple. Regulation should attach to whoever controls assets or provides a financial service, not to the code people use.

ESMA Draws Its Own Line

The more significant signal came from the regulator.

In its response to the Commission, published September 30, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said that open-source development, self-custody, automated smart contracts and permissionless infrastructure should not automatically be treated as regulated intermediation.

That is close to the industry position on self-custody. It is not, however, a light-touch position on DeFi.

ESMA proposes a new regulated service under MiCA for CASPs that give clients access to decentralized protocols. It would cover firms that offer a technical interface to DeFi, route transactions or smart contract interactions, or otherwise act as intermediaries between clients and decentralized services.

The expected obligations include risk disclosures, transparency on protocol selection and routing, conflict of interest management, due diligence on the protocols offered and operational safeguards. ESMA says those duties should scale with the degree of control a CASP has over the underlying protocol.

The authority also warned about what it calls decentralization washing, where an identifiable operator uses DeFi language to avoid MiCA. It asked the Commission to define DeFi in the legal text and to keep the exemption for fully decentralized activity as narrow as possible.

The picture that emerges is coherent. Holding your own bitcoin is one thing. Running a business that stands between clients and DeFi is another.

Where the Line Could Blur

The difficult cases sit in between.

Many wallets today are not just key managers. Some integrate swaps, staking or access to third-party protocols directly in the app. ESMA’s proposal is addressed to CASPs, and it ties obligations to control.

But the more a wallet behaves like a gateway, the stronger the argument that its operator is doing more than publishing software.

That is the question the Commission will have to answer with precision. A rule drafted around function and control would leave pure self-custody tools untouched. A rule drafted around features could catch far more than intended.

What Happens Next

Nothing changes yet. A consultation response is an input, not a rule. The Commission will now weigh the submissions as it prepares its review. Under Article 140 of MiCA, that report is due by June 30, 2027.

The Commission has said it may be accompanied by a legislative proposal if warranted.

For bitcoiners, two things are worth watching. First, whether the Commission keeps the distinction between self-custody software and regulated financial services. Second, where it finally draws the line around businesses that provide access to DeFi.

If that line follows control, self-custody stays where it is today. If it follows code, the debate is just beginning.

Many of us suppose that Lightning is anonymous. But a hacker sent stolen bitcoins to the Lightning network in an attempt to anonymize them, and his victim, Blink, is tracking him:

Phase two: following the coins in public

Today we are publishing a page that follows the stolen coins: Following the coins of the 19 September 2026 Blink attacker. It lists every address, transaction and Lightning channel we can tie to the attacker and publish today, and anyone can check each one on the public blockchain.

On 3 October we published the post-mortem of the 19 September attack: how an attacker took about 6.61 BTC from 24 Blink accounts, how every affected customer was made whole, and a 50% bounty on the stolen funds. Since then, the security advisory for our code has also been published: GHSA-w9wx-p7xr-7jvp. The post-mortem was about what happened inside Blink. This one is about where the money went, and about why we are showing it.

Key Takeaways

• Metaplanet sold 10,000 BTC for $790 million before buying back 11,000 BTC, ending with 44,000 BTC.

• The sale was designed to demonstrate that its large bitcoin treasury could be converted into cash to meet financial obligations.

• Metaplanet plans to keep 85%–90% of its assets in bitcoin while building additional income through investments and financing strategies.

Why Metaplanet Sold and Bought Back Bitcoin

Japanese bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet ended the third quarter of 2026 with 44,000 BTC after selling 10,000 bitcoin and later buying back 11,000 BTC.

The unusual move increased the company's bitcoin holdings by 1,000 BTC. More importantly, Metaplanet said the sale was designed to prove that its large bitcoin treasury could be turned into cash when needed.

Metaplanet sold the 10,000 BTC for about ¥124.7 billion, or roughly $790 million. The bitcoin was sold at an average price of about $78,900 per coin. The company then bought 11,000 BTC for approximately ¥149.9 billion, or about $950 million, at an average price of around $86,000 per bitcoin.

According to the disclosed prices, this maneuver cost the company approximately $73 million on the 10,000 BTC it sold and subsequently repurchased, due to the difference between the selling and repurchase prices.

There was a ¥1.1 million (~$7,300) difference between the bitcoin purchase and sale prices

Metaplanet temporarily kept the money from the sale in cash. The amount was enough to cover the outstanding principal of its bonds, borrowings and other interest-bearing debt. However, the company did not use the cash to repay those obligations.

CEO Simon Gerovich said the exercise was meant to show creditors and investors that bitcoin could be sold for cash if the company needed to meet its financial obligations.

“We converted Bitcoin into cash, exceeding the total outstanding principal of our bonds, borrowings and other interest-bearing debt,” Gerovich said. After completing the test, Metaplanet bought back more bitcoin than it had sold. Its holdings therefore increased from 43,000 BTC to 44,000 BTC.

Metaplanet is now the second-largest publicly listed corporate holder of bitcoin, behind Strategy. However, the gap between the two companies is enormous. Metaplanet has just reached 44,000 BTC, while Strategy holds approximately 848,000 bitcoin, nearly 20 times as much.

Metaplanet is now the second largest bitcoin treasury company — BitcoinTreasuries

The company said bitcoin will continue to make up most of its balance sheet. Under its revised capital allocation policy, around 85% to 90% of its total assets will remain in bitcoin.

The remaining 10% to 15% can be used for other investments. These include acquisitions, income-generating assets and businesses connected to Metaplanet's wider Bitcoin strategy.

The company also plans to limit borrowing used specifically to buy and hold bitcoin. Such borrowing will generally remain below about 10% of the net asset value of its bitcoin holdings.

Metaplanet's 44,000 BTC have a total cost basis of approximately $4.33 billion, giving the company an average purchase price of about $98,454 per bitcoin.

The company is also trying to build income streams beyond simply holding bitcoin.

Metaplanet has introduced a new Net Interest Income Strategy. Under the plan, the company can raise money through preferred stock, corporate bonds known as BitBonds and bitcoin-backed credit facilities.

It can then invest that money in assets that generate income. Preferred securities issued by other bitcoin treasury companies are expected to be among the investments it considers.

The basic idea is simple: Metaplanet wants to earn more from its investments than it pays to raise the money. The difference can help cover interest and other financing costs while potentially providing additional funds to buy more bitcoin.

Gerovich said the company's goal is bigger than simply accumulating BTC.

“From the beginning, our strategy was never simply to accumulate bitcoin,” he said, explaining that Metaplanet wants to build a leading Bitcoin financial company in Asia.

Metaplanet also reported results from its bitcoin Income Generation business, which uses bitcoin options strategies to generate revenue.

The business produced about ¥848.4 million, or roughly $5.4 million, in revenue during the third quarter. That was lower than the ¥1.75 billion it generated in the second quarter.

For the first nine months of 2026, the business generated approximately ¥5.57 billion, or about $35 million. Metaplanet said the business has now generated revenue for eight consecutive quarters, although its performance has so far fallen short of its original expectations.

When someone borrows dollars against their Bitcoin, two things happen at once: cash flows toward the borrower, and collateral flows away from them.

A balance displayed in an account tells you one of those stories. The other is where the Bitcoin actually goes, who can use it, and what determines whether it comes back.

Galaxy Research reported $56.16 billion in crypto-collateralized lending outstanding at the end of Q2 2026, spanning both centralized lenders and decentralized protocols.

That’s a large pool of assets sitting somewhere other than the owner’s wallet, under terms that vary widely depending on the lender.

Institutional custody: the Ledn model

Ledn, a centralized Bitcoin-backed lender, offers what it calls Custodied Loans.

When a borrower posts Bitcoin, Ledn may re-post that collateral to an institutional USD funding partner, such as a bank, credit fund or other corporate entity, or to a Ledn-sponsored financing vehicle, including a Bitcoin-backed asset-backed security, according to the company’s documentation.

The collateral moves, but the rules around it are specific. It remains in verifiable custody, legally ring-fenced from the funding partner’s own assets or held in a bankruptcy-remote vehicle. Neither Ledn nor the funding partner nor any financing vehicle has the right to lend it out for interest, Ledn says.

Posting Bitcoin as security for a dollar loan is not the same as lending Bitcoin itself. In the first case, the collateral backs a specific obligation. In the second, it becomes someone else’s asset to deploy, and the borrower’s return depends on a chain of counterparties each performing their obligations.

Centralized lending with onward collateral use

Not all lenders operate this way. In a different model, used by some centralized platforms, the lender receives Bitcoin as collateral and may contractually reserve the right to lend it onward to another counterparty for interest.

The original borrower still owes dollars, but the lender now also depends on the onward borrower returning the Bitcoin.

This creates an additional source of revenue for the lender but introduces repayment dependency. If the onward borrower defaults, the original borrower’s collateral may not be readily available for return.

The collapses of Celsius, BlockFi and Voyager in 2022 demonstrated what happens when these chains break, borrowers who believed their collateral was safely held discovered it had been deployed in ways that left them as unsecured creditors in bankruptcy proceedings.

Wrapped Bitcoin in DeFi: two layers to track

A third model works differently again. Coinbase’s cbBTC is a token backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin held by Coinbase. The token currently has a circulating supply of roughly 95,900 cbBTC, worth approximately $8.1 billion, according to CoinGecko.

When someone holds cbBTC, the native Bitcoin sits with Coinbase as custodian while the token itself trades freely on blockchain networks.

That token can then enter a lending protocol, creating two distinct layers of custody and risk: the native Bitcoin with Coinbase, and the cbBTC token inside a smart contract.

How the token is treated depends on which protocol it enters. On Aave, the largest DeFi lending protocol with roughly $19.5 billion in total value locked according to DeFiLlama, supplied tokens enter liquidity pools where they can serve as collateral and are available to borrowers, earning supply interest for the depositor.

On Morpho, which holds approximately $11.1 billion in TVL per DeFiLlama, the design separates collateral from loan assets, collateral posted by borrowers is not lent out to other borrowers and does not earn supply interest by default, according to the protocol’s documentation. Lenders earn interest by supplying the loan asset, not the collateral.

Someone acquiring cbBTC on a secondary market does not need to personally wrap Bitcoin through Coinbase, they simply buy the existing token. But they inherit the custodial arrangement underneath it, including any terms Coinbase sets for redemption back to native BTC.

When the loan ends, or doesn’t

For each model, the path back to the borrower’s Bitcoin depends on what happens next.

In Ledn’s Custodied Loan structure, repaying the loan in full triggers the release of collateral back to the borrower. If the value of the collateral drops significantly, Ledn may issue margin calls or liquidate a portion to maintain the loan-to-value ratio, as with any collateralized lending arrangement.

In centralized models where collateral may be lent onward, the borrower’s ability to recover their Bitcoin depends not only on their own repayment but on the lender’s ability to recall collateral from wherever it was deployed.

In DeFi, repayment releases collateral from the smart contract, but for wrapped tokens, the borrower then holds cbBTC, not native Bitcoin. Redeeming that token for BTC requires going through Coinbase’s unwrapping process, which carries its own terms and conditions.

If a liquidation occurs in the DeFi protocol, the collateral is sold to cover the debt, and the borrower loses it entirely, the same outcome as any margin loan. Four questions every Bitcoin borrower should ask

The lending market offers more options than ever, but the range of custody and risk models underneath them has also widened. Before posting Bitcoin as collateral, four questions cut through the complexity:

Who holds the asset? Who can use it, and for what purpose? What evidence, attestation reports, onchain records, contractual terms, verifies the arrangement? And what specific conditions determine whether you get your Bitcoin back?

The answer differs on lender, protocol and the structure, which is exactly why they are worth asking before the Bitcoin leaves your wallet.

Now Accepting Bitcoin: Old Major Market Brings Artisanal Meats to 48 States

Old Major Market, a Central Indiana butcher holding 100% of new bitcoin payments on its balance sheet.

The trip to Indianapolis that introduced me to Old Major Market started at Kaffeine Coffee Co. on Fulton Street. The coffee was tasty, but my real surprise was running into a local Bitcoiner who was also paying for his order in satoshis, making me feel like not such a rare breed in this fiat world.

The friend I made shared about a network of Indiana merchants the Indianapolis local Indy Bitcoin Group has been orange pilling.

First Up: Old Major Market LLC (Artisan Meats)

A common complaint of merchant Bitcoin adoption is that the shop owners will liquidate 100% of their Bitcoin back into cash using payment processors like Square. This is true to start, but a fascinating shift occurs once a business owner reads about bitcoin. Old Major LLC, an artisan meat distributor based in Indianapolis, is a prime example of that shift.

The Big Ole Update!!

According to owner Mark LaFay, Starting in 2026, Old Major Market made a major strategic decision: they are keeping 100% of the Bitcoin they receive directly on their balance sheet. They realized that holding bitcoin opens up significant long-term upside. Old Major ships their meats to all 48 lower states. Mark says the Maple bourbon bacon is very popular!

Big shout out to the Bitcoiners in Central Indiana that have been stopping by Old Major for over a year to buy bacon, sausages, and specialty meats with sats. While the shop originally agreed to accept Bitcoin and instantly converted every transaction to cash, the steady stream of Bitcoin payments caught their attention.

The “1% Orange Pill” Math

When a dedicated community directs its routine spending toward supportive merchants, the business case for the owner becomes undeniable:

• The Baseline: A local merchant generating $1 Million in annual revenue with a 10% profit margin brings home $100,000 in net profit.
• The 1% New Customer Shift: If local Bitcoiners represent just 1% of total sales, that’s $10,000 in annual Bitcoin transactions. If the owner sells the coins, regret creeps in, “what if I held the coins?”…
• The BTC Holding Strategy: Let’s assume the store instead decides to hold that Bitcoin in 2026, and BTC doubles in value this year. A 1% shift in customer payment preference increases the owner’s total annual up 20% at $120,000.
• That financial reality is the ultimate orange pill. A focused group of customers directing their commerce toward open-minded owners can move the needle for merchant adoption, whether the owner holds from day one or learns along the way that they are missing profit.

Argentina just announced a citizenship-by-investment program.

If you’ve been stacking sats and quietly building a passport portfolio, this one’s for you.

Bitcoiners have always been interested in the idea of a passport portfolio. We separate money and the state. We also want to separate ourselves from a single government monopoly over us - one jurisdiction, one passport, one set of rules that can change overnight.

A second passport isn’t about abandoning home. It’s about optionality. Same logic as multisig.

The Menu Before Today

For years, the Bitcoiner playbook looked roughly like this:

Caribbean. Saint Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda have led the market - established citizenship-by-investment routes, known tax havens, allow Bitcoin as source/proof of funds.

El Salvador - the premium program. $1 million donation that gets you citizenship in 6 weeks. Bitcoin-native faster than anything on the market, high ticket, not for everyone.

Africa (affordable tier). A few newer, lower-cost African passports came to market. Among Bitcoiners, São Tomé and Príncipe has been a favorite - cheap enough to actually buy ~1BTC, useful as a true Plan B slot in a diversified stack.

Those options still matter - optionality means more than one jurisdiction.

What’s New: Argentina

Two paths for the main applicant:

Donation: $350,000 non-refundable contribution to the National Treasury

Bond: $800,000 in a government security created for the program

Family add-ons (per official briefing):

Spouse / single adult children 18–25 with no kids: $100,000 each

Children under 18: $25,000 each

Typical family of four (principal + spouse + two minors): $500,000 total on the donation route

Funds go through the formal financial system, with FATF/OECD-style due diligence. The Citizenship by Investment Programs Agency reviews; Migraciones has the final yes/no.

This isn’t live tomorrow morning. It’s announced, priced, and targeted for late-2026 intake. For Bitcoiners who plan in multi-year cycles, that’s still a live product on the board.

Why Argentina Hits the Bitcoiner Checklist

Here’s why this one resonates with people who hold their own keys:

It’s a Plan B passport. Not a golden visa, not a residency permit.

It’s bug-out land with real resources. Water, food production, space. If your threat model includes “I might actually need to go somewhere,” geography matters.

It’s a lifestyle destination. Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Mendoza, the Atlantic coast — places people already want to spend time, so it's a viable Plan B for relocation.

It’s a large economy. G20 is not a microstate.

It’s far from current geopolitical conflict. Caputo said it out loud in Paris: the world is in conflict, and Argentina sits outside those central problems. For a passport portfolio asset it matters.

Bitcoiners buy passports for asymmetric upside: low probability of needing it, catastrophic cost if you need it and don’t have it.

Bitcoin and Taxes in Argentina

Milei’s Argentina talks a big freedom game but the tax code is still a tax code. Here’s the plain version for individuals - not tax advice.

Holding isn’t the taxable event. For individuals, paper gains from BTC sitting in a wallet are generally not taxed just because the price moved.

Selling/swapping is. Gains from disposing of crypto are subject to Impuesto a las Ganancias. Rough map from ARCA’s own guidance:

Argentine-source disposals settled in pesos (no adjustment clause): often 5%

Disposals tied to foreign currency / foreign-source: 15%

Yield counts. Staking / platform / DeFi-style yields are generally taxable when credited.

Mining rewards are taxable.

Personal assets tax (Bienes Personales) can reach crypto as part of your wealth base if you’re over the annual threshold - separate from capital gains.

Policy direction: Milei’s government has been loudly crypto-curious. In 2026 it moved to exempt registered VASPs from the old 1.2% “cheque” tax on fiat flows in/out of exchanges — a real cost cut for users. That doesn’t equal “zero tax on Bitcoin.” It does equal: the state is slowly treating crypto rails more like normal finance.

Americans: read this twice. A second passport does not end US citizenship-based taxation. The IRS still wants its cut on worldwide income. Argentina is mobility and optionality, not a tax solution.

How it Fits a Passport Portfolio

Think in layers, the way you think about cold storage vs hot wallets:

Known process — Caribbean (St Kitts, Antigua)

Bitcoin-country premium program — El Salvador (~$1M)

Affordable African diversifier — São Tomé and Principe

Large-economy, resource-rich, Southern Hemisphere Plan B — Argentina ($350k / $500k family)

Stack sats. Stack passports.

A businessman was beaten with hammers by masked men who broke into his home and threatened to kill his heavily pregnant wife unless he transferred hundreds of thousands of pounds of cryptocurrency.

Speaking to the BBC, the couple, who want to remain anonymous, described the attack as "horrific" and said they feared for their unborn baby's life.

The attackers left in a car driven by a getaway driver after the man transferred his crypto savings.

Crimestoppers are offering a £10,000 reward for information in the attack, which was captured on home security footage and is being investigated by the police.

Experts say it is one of a growing type of violent theft known as a "wrench attack" targeting cryptocurrency investors.

As crypto coins have risen in value, reports of these violent robberies linked to digital assets have emerged in the UK, France and the US.

Once funds are transferred, recovering them can be extremely difficult.

The man, who the BBC is calling James, said three intruders forced their way into their Solihull home before launching an assault which lasted 45 minutes.

"The door gets pushed open, I can see gloves coming in, balaclavas," he said.

James tried to fight the men off but they hit him in the face, head and ribs with hammers.

His wife, who was seven months pregnant, was held down on the sofa by one of the criminals.

"He's got a pillow over her face," James said. "He's literally suffocating her on the sofa. I can hear her screaming, 'I can't breathe'."

The couple still had no idea what the criminals wanted until one of the men demanded James unlock his phone and hand it over.

James said the attackers appeared to know he owned cryptocurrency, but had little understanding of how to access it.

Instead, they were taking instructions from someone else connected via a live video call.

"I can hear the guy on FaceTime saying: 'Show me everything on his phone. Show me what apps he's got'," he said.

When the caller identified a crypto wallet containing substantial funds, the threats escalated dramatically.

"He was basically saying: 'Look, if you don't send us this money now, we're going to stab your wife in the stomach and kill your baby. We're going to kill your wife'," James said.

His wife, who also did not want to be named, described the attack that happened in December last year as "horrific" and said she feared James had been killed when he was unresponsive on the floor.

"It was terrifying," she said.

The woman, in her early thirties, was expecting her third child at the time and said she feared she might lose the baby due to the stress of the attack. The baby survived and was born at full term.

The men left after James transferred his savings - hundreds of thousands of pounds of cryptocurrency - to the digital wallet of the man on the video call.

They also stole several luxury Rolex watches.

James said before they left, he heard the man on the video call tell his accomplices: "You can have 10 grand each but I am taking the rest."

For criminals, that combination of speed, anonymity and irreversibility can make crypto holders attractive targets.

Whilst the vast majority of cryptocurrency theft happens online through hacks and scams, crypto investigators at Chainalysis say "wrench attacks" have surged in recent years.

According to their research, $30m (£22.6m) had been stolen so far this year up to June in violent robberies, making 2026 likely to become the single-worst year for violent crypto attacks on record. Home invasions are also on the rise this year, it found.

The US, Brazil, and Thailand are hotspots but France has seen the largest number of attacks by far, as a result of a data breach at a tax office that has apparently allowed wealthy crypto holders to be located.

"The physical security assumptions that protect traditional wealth, such as bank vaults and armored cars, do not automatically apply in crypto. Often, holders keep their assets in comparatively low security setups, like self-custody wallets, that can be compromised without any institutional gatekeeper standing in the way," said researchers in their report.

James said he became an amateur investor in crypto coins in 2020 and made enough money to quit his job in 2023 to trade full time.

Now he has lost everything and is looking to get back to his traditional job.

Police have yet to identify the attackers.

Crimestoppers is offering a £10,000 reward for information leading to progress in the investigation.

Alan Edwards from the charity hopes people might have information about the three attackers, the driver who was parked outside without a face covering, or the man on the phone.

"These criminals are obviously serious and part of some kind of organised crime gang," he said.

"People might be scared to give us information but we are independent of the police and keep people completely anonymous."

The three attackers are all thought to be in their late teens or early 20s and one of them was a black male with a scar under his left eyebrow.

James said he has little hope of recovering the stolen funds, but instead wanted to see those responsible brought to justice.

He also wants his experience to serve as a warning.

"They threatened my wife and my baby," he said. "People need to understand these risks are real."

El Salvador seems to have obtained a pass from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after infringing a rule that forced the nation to confine its engagement in bitcoin-related economic activities, including purchases.

On Thursday, the IMF Executive Board completed the second and third reviews of El Salvador’s performance under a $1.4 billion extended fund facility greenlit in February 2025. The institution praised the government’s compliance with the credit facility conditions, approving a disbursement of about $138 million.

In its report, the IMF stresses that El Salvador’s economic activity has “exceeded expectations,” with fiscal consolidation advancing broadly in line with required financial reforms.

While the IMF applauded the recent transfer of Chivo wallet’s majority control to a private operator, it highlighted that “certain performance criteria were not met, including on the Bitcoin accumulation front,” referring to the continued additions to the country’s bitcoin reserve, which has already risen to 7,792 BTC according to official numbers.

Even so, the IMF waived these infringements due to “strong corrective measures and renewed commitments,” proposing to reduce the state’s involvement in these purchases and enhance transparency around the public sector’s crypto holdings.

Previously, the IMF explained that the funding for the bitcoin added to the country’s reserves came from an undisclosed private donor and that no public holdings were involved in these transactions. While the donor’s identity was not disclosed, some pointed to Tether, the giant stablecoin issuer, which moved its headquarters to El Salvador. Nonetheless, no official clarification has been issued.

“The state’s involvement in Bitcoin-related activities is being unwound while related regulations are enhanced,” said Dan Katz, IMF First Deputy Managing Director, labeling Chivo Wallet’s ownership transfer as a “welcome step.”

While he stressed that no further Bitcoin accumulation was expected beyond the documented donations, El Salvador has continued to acquire, or, as it is known now, to receive donations in BTC, disregarding the IMF’s past recommendations.

It remains to be seen if President Bukele will continue to grow El Salvador’s bitcoin stash or if he will stop receiving these donations, complying with the IMF’s requirements going forward.

The Plan B project promotes Lugano as a place where you can spend bitcoin. So we went there for a little vacation and to conduct some reconnaissance. I was interested in the possibility of spending time there when I retire.

The Plan B web site has a map that lists all of the stores in Lugano that accept bitcoin. I set aside a day to explore. Based on that map, I created an itinerary of bitcoin-friendly locations that I wanted to visit. I chose a book store, a record shop, the Plan B information desk, and a cafe. After breakfast I set out on my trek.

I went to the book store and the record shop, they were both out of business. The Plan B map still listed them as businesses accepting bitcoin, but they weren't there.

The map on the Plan B web site shows the location of the Plan B office, so I went there next. That also wasn't there. The address was a small building with half a dozen offices, none of them was for Plan B.

Then I went to the cafe. It existed (it was a large old restaurant on Piazza Manzoni). When I tried to pay with bitcoin, they said that, for them, accepting bitcoin payments was "a work in progress". I paid with a credit card.

So, in my experience, Lugano Plan B is a complete load of crap.

A former National Crime Agency (NCA) officer will have to repay £1.8m after stealing the valuable cryptocurrency Bitcoin he seized during an investigation.

Paul Chowles, 44, from Bristol, was jailed for five and a half years at Liverpool Crown Court last year after pleading guilty to theft and money laundering.

After his part in an NCA investigation into criminals selling illegal goods on the dark web, Chowles transferred about half of the Bitcoin seized from a drug trafficker into his own accounts.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) secured a confiscation order earlier that is equal to the value of the 30 Bitcoin recovered from Chowles, which has ballooned from £36,000 to more than £1.8m.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/47938532

Bringing native Stratum V2 support :3 it'll be on umbrel soon

if anyone has whatsminers could you test them against pogolo and report back?

also i forgot a 1.1.5 post, umbrel has a nice webui now, forked from umbrel-bitcoin :3

::: spoiler more screenshots

:::

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/47906087

comes with a new indexing format, needs reindexing D:

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/47424890

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/47424894