Recapping Bitcoin industry news for March 2023

Welcome to the 5th edition of our monthly Bitcoin news wrap-up.

Last month was all about Ordinals and Nostr.

Here's what happened in the bitcoin industry during March 2023.

Top Events

• Microstrategy announced the repayment of a Silvergate Capital (NYSE: SI) loan at a discount and the purchase of more bitcoin.

• Bitcoin seized from Silk Road in 2013 is being liquidated by the US government. 9,800 BTC were sold on March 14. A further 41,500 BTC will be liquidated in batches over the course of the year.

• ETH was labeled as a security by the NYAG (the first regulator to do so) in their lawsuit against Kucoin.

• The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao with allegations of taking a deliberate and calculated approach to violate US commodities regulations.

• Silicon Valley Bank (NASDAQ: SIVB) goes bust in the quickest bank run in history.

Lightning Network Updates

• Public capacity on the Lightning Network just hit another all-time high.

• Lightning Network growth is organic, coming from real-world adoption:

Bitcoin Mining

• The Biden administration proposed harsh taxes on bitcoin miners.

• Iris Energy (NASDAQ: IREN) increased its mining capacity from 2.0 to 5.5 EH/s by using prepayments to acquire new miners from Bitmain.

• The network hash rate continues to climb, now at an all-time high of 350 EH/s and up 37% YTD (or 302 EH/s and 26%, respectively, based on 90 day average). In 2022, there was a lot of unused, newer inventory of ASICs that sat idle at lower bitcoin prices. Now, they're making their way onto the network as public miners continue to expand, most noticeably in companies like Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA), Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT) and Cipher Mining (NASDAQ: CIFR).

Best Articles and Podcasts

• Why AI won’t cause unemployment. Mr ‘Code will Eat the World’, Marc Andreessen, argues that the prices of regulated, non-technological products will rise; while the prices of less regulated, technologically-powered products fall. So while AI will cause the price of some products to fall, it won’t eat the economy, because the regulated ‘non-tech’ sectors are continuously growing as a percentage of GDP.

• The former CTO of Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Balji Srinivasan, made a $1 million bet during the month that the price of Bitcoin would exceed US$1 million inside 90 days and he gave odds of 40/1 against. It is insane and James Medlock (the man taking the bet) very clearly has the best of it. Balaji produced a rather long rant backing up his thesis that the US is already in hyperinflation.

Macro and Politics

• China and France completed the first Yuan-settled LNG trade. China has placed an emphasis on settling oil and gas trades in Yuan in recent years in a bid to establish its currency internationally and to weaken the US Dollar's grip on world trade. Also, Brazil and China have struck a deal to ditch the Dollar in favor of their own currencies in trade transactions. Is this the beginning of the end of using the US Dollar for energy trades?

• The Fed expanded its balance sheet by US$297 billion in one week during March. The fourth greatest weekly increase ever. It was only exceeded by three weeks during the COVID stimulus bonanza.
  

Meme of the month