🧑‍💻 Bitcoin Devs Speak Up

Markets

Biden ties Republicans to ‘wealthy crypto investors’ in budget battle (2 minute read)
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden criticized "wealthy crypto investors" in a tweet, using the opportunity to contrast their tax loopholes with the GOP's proposed federal budget cuts. Biden suggested that Congress should cut tax loopholes for wealthy crypto investors, which currently total $18 billion, rather than cut funding for food safety inspections, a $15 billion proposal supported by some MAGA Republicans. Biden's tweet comes as the U.S. faces a potential debt crisis, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning last week that the country could run out of cash as soon as June 1 if the debt limit is not raised or suspended by Congress before that time.

Crypto exchange Bittrex files for bankruptcy after SEC complaint (2 minute read)
Bittrex Inc, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Seattle, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, following the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) recent allegations that it was operating an unregistered securities exchange. While Bittrex ceased operations in the U.S. on April 30, the bankruptcy filing will not impact Bittrex Global, which serves non-U.S. customers from Liechtenstein. According to the bankruptcy petition filed in Delaware court, Bittrex's assets and liabilities were both between $500 million and $1 billion. Despite the bankruptcy filing, Bittrex revealed that it still held cryptocurrency assets of U.S. customers who did not withdraw funds before April 30.

Crypto Whales Accumulate Millions in Pepecoin as Trading Volume Shifts to Binance (3 minute read)
Despite a recent price correction, traders of Pepecoin (PEPE) appear to be adding to their holdings, suggesting a bullish trend for the tokens in the near future. On-chain analytics tool Lookonchain reported that three large PEPE holders, known as whales, began accumulating tokens earlier this week after a price drop of almost 50%. One whale, 0x50C1, withdrew 1.4T PEPE tokens, equivalent to $2.76 million, from Binance when the price was $0.000002054. CoinGecko data indicates that more than $420 million in PEPE tokens were traded in the last 24 hours, despite the steep decline in prices, followed by a rebound.

Tech

Bitcoin Core Dev Calls For Spam Filter To Kill Ordinals, BRC20 (3 minute read)
Luke Dashjr, one of the core developers of Bitcoin Core since 2011, has called for an end to the trend of Ordinals and BRC20 meme coins, which are congesting the Bitcoin blockchain. Dashjr, who is a vocal critic of Ordinals, considers Bitcoin NFTs and tokens a spam attack and argues that measures should have been taken months ago to filter out such spam transactions. According to him, spam filtering has been a standard part of Bitcoin Core since day 1, and a mistake was made in the software by not extending existing filters to Taproot transactions. Currently, there are 414,000 transactions in the mempool waiting to be added to a block, with the average medium-priority transaction fee being $13.46, which is partially caused by the inefficiencies of the Ordinals and BRC20 tokens.

Michael Saylor: Bitcoin Ordinals Are a ‘Catalyst’ for Adoption (2 minute read)
Michael Saylor, the co-founder of Microstrategy and a prominent Bitcoin proponent, believes that the recent Ordinals craze has been a catalyst for Bitcoin adoption. Saylor noted that every time someone builds an application that is cool on Bitcoin, it drives up transaction fees, which serves as a catalyst for the asset's adoption. He also mentioned other catalysts, such as bank failures, hyperinflation, regulators recognizing Bitcoin as a commodity, and companies like Microstrategy buying large amounts of Bitcoin. Saylor made these comments during an episode of the PBD Podcast.

Misc

Crypto Industry Asks UK to Think Globally as Government Closes Consultation on Proposed Rules (4 minute read)
The proposed legislation for the crypto industry in the U.K. has been largely welcomed by stakeholders, who are urging the country to collaborate with regulators globally to avoid post-Brexit isolation, according to a review of public comments. The public consultation period for the country's proposed strategy for the crypto sector ended on April 30, with global industry players submitting their views. The new regulations could bring about regulatory clarity for crypto assets in the U.K. and reduce financial risks, according to Riccardo Tordera Ricchi, head of policy at The Payments Association. However, stakeholders are also wary of being isolated from European regulations like the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation.

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