Back from Baltic Honeybadger and feeling more inspired than ever. I moderated the State & Bitcoin panel and spent time with brilliant builders and educators tackling real problems and turning them into practical solutions. What struck me most is that we are all championing bitcoin in our own ways yet united in purpose. If you want signal you will find it at Baltic Honeybadger. @Hodl Hodl ⚡️
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has just delivered one of the strongest defences of financial privacy we’ve seen from a US regulator. Speaking at the Science of Blockchain Conference hosted at UC Berkeley, she challenged the idea that all financial systems must be subject to surveillance. She argued that open source immutable protocols, available to anyone and controlled by no one, should not be forced to comply with laws designed for financial intermediaries. She made the case that building neutral infrastructure is not a crime, and that writing open source code should not make you a target. While the headlines call it a speech about crypto, her remarks point directly at Bitcoin. She described “an immutable, open source protocol… available for anyone’s use in perpetuity,” and argued that “requiring that it comply with financial surveillance measures is fruitless.” She added that we should not “ask peers transacting with one another, where no intermediary exists, to collect and report information on each other,” and warned that doing so “would deputize us to surveil our neighbors... a practice antithetical to a free society.” No other digital asset fits that description. Bitcoin runs without intermediaries, cannot be altered by committees, and allows individuals to hold and transfer value without permission. It was a clear and necessary signal to policymakers, developers, and the public that financial privacy is not a loophole, but a principle that deserves protection. Read the full speech here: image
Police get £500K Bitcoin windfall to support local communities and cut crime. Lancashire Police confiscated Bitcoin from a man who scammed victims through fake online investments. The stolen funds were returned at their original value, but because Bitcoin had gone up in price, there was a £1 million surplus. Half now goes to the police, earmarked for community safety and crime prevention. Once again, Bitcoin proves it’s bad for criminals and good for communities. Bullish.
Former UK Chancellor George Osborne has just criticised the UK's failure on Bitcoin. And he's absolutely right. In his recent opinion piece in the Financial Times, Osborne reflects on using the UK's first Bitcoin ATM 11 years ago and how Britain let that early lead slip away. The world is moving fast, and the UK is falling further behind. At least someone is paying attention. He names the symptoms we know too well: - Retail investors blocked from spot Bitcoin ETFs - Banks routinely freezing lawful transactions - Startups suffocated by slow, unclear onboarding - Policymakers hiding behind regulators while others build Osborne calls for political courage and clarity. He wrote, "On crypto and stablecoins, as on too many other things, the hard truth is this, we're being completely left behind. It's time to catch up." If we missed the first wave, which was Bitcoin, we are now at risk of missing the second, which is stablecoins. Other countries are advancing rapidly with clear legal frameworks and a drive to innovate. The UK remains stuck. Osborne draws the same line we've been making at Bitcoin Policy UK. Bitcoin is not the same as "crypto." It is foundational monetary infrastructure. Stablecoins are financial plumbing. Both matter, but both require distinct, thoughtful regulation. That clarity is still missing here. His call for a new Big Bang moment and serious reform in the spirit of the 1980s. At Bitcoin Policy UK we've been sounding this alarm in meetings, consultations, articles, and in conversations across government. Osborne's article reinforces exactly what we've been saying. Without urgent change, we risk becoming a cautionary tale. The UK doesn't lack talent and opportunity. It lacks leadership. Osbourne gets it. The question is... will anyone in Westminster catch up? Read the full article here: image
Arkham has published analysis data linking wallets to the theft of 127,425 BTC from the LuBian mining pool in 2020. Worth $3.5 billion at the time and over $14 billion today. OP_RETURN was introduced in 2014 to allow small pieces of data to be written into Bitcoin transactions. In 2025, Bitcoin Core removed the size limit. That change now makes it possible to inscribe entire identity claims directly into blocks. In 2020 LuBian used OP_RETURN to send public messages to the hacker, such as please return our funds, in an effort to reach them via the blockchain. Today Arkham is using the same function to post bounty returns containing detailed claims about who controls specific wallets. These bounty returns can include names, wallet addresses, and on-chain heuristics that point to likely ownership or intent. The data is embedded directly into the Bitcoin blockchain. LuBian never publicly disclosed the theft. The hacker never came forward. Arkham’s post is the first public attribution of what may be the largest Bitcoin theft in history. According to Arkham’s top holders list, the LuBian hacker still controls over 127,425 BTC, more than the Mt. Gox hacker and most major entities. In a system where data cannot be changed or removed, these developments raise questions about how privacy should be protected. It also points to a growing role for tools, such as eCash or other privacy layers. In a week where state surveillance powers are expanding and companies are embedding identity claims directly into public blockchains, the role of privacy preserving tools like eCash has never been more urgent. Privacy is a normal and necessary part of everyday life. That expectation should extend to our digital and financial systems, especially as they become more focused on monitoring, identification, and control. The case for privacy tools is only getting stronger.
Bitcoin is hope! Art by @Street Cyber. image
When did criticising policy make you a target of the state? Why is a secret government unit policing public opinion? What exactly is happening behind the scenes in government? A secretive government unit, empowered by the Online Safety Act, is quietly flagging and suppressing online criticism of immigration policy. It operates behind closed doors. It is unelected. It is unaccountable. And it is being used to control the narrative under the guise of safety. A front page Telegraph exposé, titled "Exposed: Labour’s plot to silence migrant hotel critics"reveals disturbing details . The article uncovers that a secretive Whitehall unit called NSOIT (the National Security and Online Information Team), formerly known as the Counter Disinformation Unit, has been used by Labour ministers in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to flag and monitor social media posts that criticised migrant hotels, asylum seekers, or raised concerns about “two-tier policing.” According to internal government emails dated August 3 - 4, 2024, during the peak of the Southport riots, officials actively flagged posts with “concerning narratives,” warning that they might inflame public tensions. These posts were then forwarded to platforms like TikTok, many of them labelled as urgent, despite simply reporting factual information such as hotel locations or referring to asylum seekers as “undocumented fighting-age males”. One flagged example involved a user sharing a Freedom of Information (FOI) rejection letter regarding migrant hotel sites. Another was a video captioned “Looks like Islamabad but it’s Manchester,” flagged for fuelling racial stereotypes, yet still not unlawful under current speech laws. Although the government insists it did not request content removals, civil liberties advocates, including Big Brother Watch and the Free Speech Union, argue that this behaviour amounts to censorship of lawful dissent, carried out by unelected officials with no statutory oversight, using the infrastructure created by the Online Safety Act. This has the fingerprints of the 77th Brigade all over it, covert monitoring, narrative control, and a quiet war on the public's right to speak freely. This is not safety. It’s censorship and control.
The newly released White House Digital Assets Report represents a clear policy shift. For the first time, Bitcoin is treated as something distinct, quoted, cited, and understood on its own terms. Satoshi is referenced, the whitepaper is cited, and Bitcoin is positioned as the foundation of the digital asset ecosystem. The report outlines Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer structure, its operation without intermediaries, and its role in financial innovation. It goes further than past U.S. publications in explaining what sets Bitcoin apart from the wider crypto sector. It also mentions the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. While details remain limited, the fact that Bitcoin is being considered a strategic asset, separate from other digital assets, insicates a clear shift in policy tone. For Bitcoiners, this is progress. The framing is more deliberate. The tone is more respectful. And the message is clear: Bitcoin is being taken seriously. The groundwork is laid. What matters now is whether policymakers engage with Bitcoin on its own terms and begin treating it as a serious strategic asset. Meanwhile, in the UK, spot Bitcoin ETFs remain unavailable, and Economic Secretary Emma Reynolds has dismissed the idea of a national Bitcoin reserve: “We don’t believe that’s the right approach for our market… that’s not the path we plan to take.” They say when the U.S. acts, the rest of the world follows. Let’s hope that’s true for the UK, because Bitcoin offers the kind of hope we badly need in a dysfunctional, collapsing system. Read the report here: