July 26, 2024 | Read Online

Bitcoin 2024: All Eyes on Nashville

Marathon Digital Goes Full HODL with $100M Buy

The Breakdown First Five - Friday, July 26, 2024

Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.

5. Marshall Out

Republican Senator Roger Marshall has withdrawn as a co-sponsor of Elizabeth Warren’s crypto money laundering bill. The bill was first introduced in 2022 but gathered more momentum earlier this year as crypto terrorism finance became a hot topic. The bill would have placed compliance standards on blockchain infrastructure like nodes and miners. Many in the industry framed it as a backdoor crypto ban.

Cody Carbone @CodyCarboneDC

🚨 Incredible. Senator Marshall has officially withdrawn support of the Warren/Marshall bill (DAAMLA)

This is a bill we have been opposing for several years. It’s a backdoor ban on blockchain technology by creating impossible compliance requirements for miners, validators, etc.

9:42 PM • Jul 25, 2024

424 Likes 86 Retweets

17 Replies

4. Jersey City Pension

The Jersey City pension plan will invest in Bitcoin. Democrat Mayor Steven Fulop made the announcement via twitter in the midst of a run for the governor’s mansion. The pension is currently updating documents and hopes to make the allocation by the end of the summer. This move comes after the Wisconsin state pension bought Bitcoin earlier this year, making the case that Bitcoin was a prudent investment for retirement managers.

Steven Fulop @StevenFulop

Not my normal subject matter in a post but I’ll share anyway - the question on whether Crypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over + crypto/Bitcoin won. The #JerseyCity pension fund is in process of updating paperwork to the SEC to allocate % of the fund to Bitcoin ETFs… x.com/i/web/status/1…

tw profile: Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Magazine @BitcoinMagazine

JUST IN: The world’s largest #Bitcoin conference starts today in Nashville 🚀

12:37 PM • Jul 25, 2024

970 Likes 165 Retweets

112 Replies

3. Coinbase Subsidiary Fined

A UK based Coinbase subsidiary has been fined $4.5M for failure to meet KYC/AML expectations. The FCA said they had repeatedly breached a requirement that prevented them from offering services to high-risk customers. Around 13,416 high risk customers are alleged to have access the platform with around $25M in deposits. FCA director of enforcement said that money laundering risks are real and “firms must take them seriously."

Wojtek Kaszycki @wkaszycki

It looks like the @TheFCA is getting more eyes on crypto! @coinbase has been fined $3.6M in the UK for inadequate checks on high-risk customers. This marks a step towards stricter crypto regulations in the UK. #AML#cryptocurrency#Compliance

11:54 AM • Jul 25, 2024

1 Like 0 Retweets

0 Replies

2. Marathon Hodling

Marathon Digital have switched to a “full HODL” strategy and are kicking it off with a $100M Bitcoin buy. The past few months have seen large volumes of selling from miners as they attempt to keep their heads above water following the halving. Marathon themselves sold over $100M worth in June. They will now retain all mined Bitcoin. The last time they adopted this strategy was Q1 of 2021, and we all know what happened next.

Fred Thiel @fgthiel

Today Marathon is proud to announce that to strengthen our strategy of holding #Bitcoin as our strategic treasury reserve asset, we have over the past month purchased $100 million in BTC, and will now go full HODL @saylor

12:10 PM • Jul 25, 2024

3.49K Likes 475 Retweets

136 Replies

1. Left My Seed Phrase In Nashville

All eyes on Nashville as Bitcoin 2024 kicks off. We’ve already had a host of big announcements from Bitcoin companies, but the biggest news will come from Trump’s appearance on Saturday. Will he announce a Bitcoin strategic reserve? Markets seem to think so, sending Bitcoin higher into the weekend.