Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the world’s largest pension fund managing over $1.5 trillion in assets, has announced it will explore diversifying a portion of its portfolio into Bitcoin. According to the announcement, the GPIF will solicit information on illiquid alternative assets like Bitcoin, gold, forests, and farmland as part of its diversification efforts. While not currently invested in these assets, the move signals that the mega-fund is actively researching options beyond stocks and bonds. The GPIF stated it seeks “basic knowledge about the assets targeted for information provision”…
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El Salvador Moves Bitcoin Reserves to Cold Storage Vault
On March 14, 2024, El Salvador’s president-elect, Nayib Bukele, unveiled a historic bold maneuver that echoed across the Bitcoin world: El Salvador confirmed the transfer of a substantial portion of its Bitcoin holdings into cold storage, securely kept within a vault in its national borders. This strategic decision marks a pivotal juncture in El Salvador’s Bitcoin journey since the introduction of the Bitcoin Law, which has drawn both admiration and skepticism worldwide. Amidst a cacophony of critiques ranging from allegations of human rights violations to inadequate modern infrastructure, El Salvador…
Read MoreMercury Layer’s Lightning Latch Swap Protocol
Commerceblock has released a new atomic swap protocol for use with statechains on their Mercury Layer protocol. The HSM server has introduced functionality to support atomically swapping two statechains, as well as enforcing an atomic exchange of a statechain for a Lightning payment. This is the first example of concretely defined and built interactions between statechains and the Lightning Network. Synergy between both protocols has been postulated since the concept of a statechain was originally proposed by Ruben Somsen, specifically as a way to solve the limitation of having to…
Read More$150,000: Standard Chartered Bank Raises Bitcoin Price Forecast for 2024
Global banking giant Standard Chartered has upped its bitcoin price prediction for the end of 2024 to $150,000, a significant increase from its previous forecast of $100,000. In a new report, Standard Chartered analysts cited strong inflows into recently launched spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. as a primary driver of their bullish outlook. The bank believes these “sticky” institutional flows will continue propelling Bitcoin’s price. Standard Chartered has emerged as one of the more Bitcoin-friendly legacy banks, with an active research team covering Bitcoin. Previously, the bank’s analysts had…
Read MoreCraig Wright’s Long-Running Satoshi Claim, Analyzed and Debunked
The below is an excerpt from a recent edition of Bitcoin Magazine Pro, Bitcoin Magazine’s premium markets newsletter. To be among the first to receive these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market analysis straight to your inbox, subscribe now. After a lengthy legal dispute, London’s High Court of Justice has formally determined that Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. One of the great mysteries of the Bitcoin community since its inception has been quite related to the inception itself: who is Satoshi…
Read MoreFour Case Studies: Should You Hold Bitcoin In A Roth IRA?
Whether you’re young, mid-career, or playing the back nine, Roth IRAs can be an important tool for your financial goals. Four case studies below will illustrate how by combining Roth IRAs with bitcoin, you can save for retirement, optimize for your personal tax situation during retirement, and leave your bitcoin for the next generation. These are hypothetical case studies based on our experiences, not real people. They’re intended to help you better understand how bitcoin Roth IRAs can fit into many types of retirement plans. Hence, they’re for educational purposes—you…
Read MoreMultisig, Shamir’s secret sharing, & MPC compared
For anyone with substantial bitcoin holdings, a custody structure that includes a single point of failure should be seen as unacceptable. If a wallet has a single component that—when lost or stolen—can lead to a permanent loss of funds, then it’s simply too dangerous to consider. Nobody wants to keep significant wealth teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Individual bitcoin holders have numerous tools available that can help reduce the risk of loss or theft. In a previous article, we covered some of these tools, highlighting modifications commonly applied to…
Read MoreHow Miners Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the JPEG
This article is featured in Bitcoin Magazine’s “The Inscription Issue”. Click here to get your Annual Bitcoin Magazine Subscription. Click here to download a PDF of this article. Ordinals have been a polarizing phenomenon for most every subcommunity in Bitcoin — except for miners. The meteoric rise of the new Bitcoin-native NFT standard dominated discourse for months as Ordinals flooded blockspace and buoyed transaction fees to multiyear highs. According to critics, these transactions are, at worst, an attack on Bitcoin that tainted the sanctity of scarce blockspace; at best, they…
Read MoreMicroStrategy Increases Convertible Loan to $525 Million to Buy More Bitcoin
The Michael Saylor-led software company MicroStrategy has upsized its planned convertible senior notes offering from $500 million to $525 million. The company intends to use the proceeds to acquire more Bitcoin, as per their recent press release, following a strategy it has pursued since 2020. MicroStrategy announced it had priced the 0.875% convertible senior notes due 2031 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers. The notes will be sold at 100% of the principal amount with an annual interest rate of 0.875%, payable semiannually. After March 2028, the company…
Read MoreYour financial plan may be riskier without bitcoin
This article originally appeared in the Sound Advisory blog. Sound Advisory provide financial advisory services and are specialize in educating and guiding clients to thrive financially in a bitcoin-powered world. Click here to learn more. “Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.” – Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal only lived to age…
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