16 February  2024 · Block Height 830700 · Bitcoin Price $51K

Welcome back to the Blockspace Newsletter!

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Everything’s happening in Asia, so of course Blockspace was there! We report on our takeaways from our time in Hong Kong.

Quick Hits

• Miners get relief with downward difficulty adjustment

• The Epic Sat is inscribed and it’s a “Blob”

• Bitcoin Asia attracts 5,000 in Hong Kong

• Bitcoin OG Junseth reverse social engineers a hacker

• Bitfarms fires CEO after $27 million ‘wrongful dismissal’ lawsuit

Chart of the Week

Asia Is Leading The Bitcoin Market

I’m currently on the last leg of a flight back to the U.S from Hong Kong reflecting on a trip that confirmed what I already knew to be true: Asia is (back) in the driver’s seat of Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin Asia conference saw over 5,000 attendees flock to Kai Tek Cruise Terminal Park for 2 packed days of content and then most continued the party at Ordinals Asia. The content featured major funds like ABCDE, Hashkey, and Waterdrip, who’s assets under management rival or dwarf those of some of the figureheads of Western crypto capital. Mining giants like ViaBTC, Antpool, and Bitmain were present, talking extensively about Ordinals and the future of Bitcoin L1 business strategy.

Conspicuously, the usual pantheon of Bitcoin conference A-listers were not present. Nor were their talking points or catch phrases. It’s as if the Bitcoin culture which has so defined “toxic" Bitcoin culture simply never existed. I did not hear “stay humble and stack sats” once this entire week.

Yes, there was an ungodly amount of shitcoins and scams, but this is simply the new paradigm and you’d better make peace with it. They will pay for Bitcoin blockspace and the market will decide.

The new phrases of this era are Bitcoin L1, Layer 2 and Bitcoin DeFi. Welcome to the future!

Links we liked

Tweet: Builders are in control

Blog: BTC++ & The Great Script Restoration

Writing: UTXO Mgmt’s “The Settlement Chain” Thesis

Blog: Bitcoin’s Precarious Position

Blockspace Podcasts

🎙️ Arkansas Bans Chinese Communist Bitcoin Mining!

(YouTube) Will and Matt dig into Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining news including: difficulty dropping 5.5%, Arkansas putting restrictions around Bitcoin mining and large Bitcoin miners pivoting into artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

🎙️Was The Rollup Roadmap A Mistake? With Anatoly Yakovenko

(YouTube) Dean Eigenmann, a Miner Extractable Value (MEV) searcher, joins The Gwart Show to give an insiders look into the MeV landscape, strategies, decentralization challenges, and regulatory concerns. He discusses key differences between Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, DeFi's future, L2 developments, and offers a critique of Bitcoin.

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