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Satoshi Gazette

The Wire

21 Sep 2026

Macro
Published 14:04 UTCsec.gov

Strategy Bought Back $174 Million of Its 12% Preferred and $75.7 Million of Bitcoin, Selling No Stock for a Third Week

Strategy purchased 950 bitcoin for $75.7 million and repurchased 1,771,238 STRC preferred shares for $174.0 million between September 14 and 20, funding both from USD Cash, according to its September 21 filing. It sold no shares under its at-the-market offering program, the third consecutive week in which it has reported no issuance; in the week of August 24 to 30 it sold 4,531,421 common shares for $602.8 million in net proceeds and applied them to STRC dividends, bitcoin purchases and STRC buybacks. It drew a further $57.4 million from its separately identified USD Reserve to pay preferred dividends and interest on its debt. Holdings reached approximately 846,000 BTC, and as of September 20 the company reported a USD Reserve of $5.04 billion and USD Cash of $1.05 billion.

16 Sep 2026

Policy
Published 12:49 UTCDeutsche Bank media release

Deutsche Bank to Custody Bitcoin for European Institutions, Holding Clients' Private Keys

Deutsche Bank said on September 16 that it will offer custody of selected digital assets to corporate and institutional clients in Europe, naming bitcoin, ether and the USDC, EURC and EURAU stablecoins at launch, with tokenised financial instruments on its roadmap. The bank will "manage the wallets and private keys on clients' behalf." The release says clients can safeguard digital assets and transfer them to third parties. It does not mention trading. The service has not started. Deutsche Bank states go-live with first clients "this year subject to the completion of the applicable regulatory timeline." Several outlets reported the announcement as a launch. The release names no partner, referring only to "selected external technology and infrastructure providers for defined technical components." Taurus and Bitpanda have been named in earlier Bloomberg reporting relayed by trade press, not by Deutsche Bank here. Gerald Podobnik, Co-Head Corporate Bank, said digital assets are "not a replacement for the traditional financial system but an important complement to it."

14 Sep 2026

Macro
Published 16:45 UTC@saylor on X

Strategy used $139.3 million in cash to buy back preferred shares, not bitcoin

Strategy repurchased 1,420,467 STRC preferred shares for $139.3 million between September 8 and 13, using its USD Cash balance, according to its September 14 filing. It reported no bitcoin purchases or sales and no at-the-market share issuance during that period. Its reported holdings remained approximately 845,050 BTC. Separately, it listed a $5.10 billion USD Reserve intended for dividends and interest and $1.30 billion in USD Cash. The repurchase used USD Cash, not the separately identified USD Reserve.

Policy
Published 13:59 UTC@swissbitcoinpay on X

Swiss Bitcoin Pay shuts servers after suspected intrusion; customer data may be exposed

Swiss Bitcoin Pay says it is temporarily shutting down its servers after suspected unauthorised access to internal systems. The company says customer emails, Bitcoin addresses, IBANs, transaction histories and hashed passwords may have been accessed; the full scope remains unclear. It says user funds are safe and amounts owed will be returned, but has given no reopening date. In a follow-up, it explained that incoming Lightning payments are temporarily held before batched on-chain payouts.

11 Sep 2026

Macro
Published 13:35 UTC@Blockstream on X

Blockstream Says It Will Not Pay a Ransom for Liquid's Missing 598.5 BTC. The Demand Was Written On-Chain.

Blockstream said at 05:25 UTC on September 11 that it "will not pay a ransom for the return of stolen funds" taken from the Liquid Network, calling the exploit "a crime, not responsible disclosure" and adding that "Bitcoin doesn't haircut users to pay a ransom"; if the coins are not returned it says it will pursue "every lawful avenue," working with law enforcement, exchanges and forensic specialists. The terms it is refusing are on the Bitcoin chain: at 11:45 UTC on September 9 the address holding the retained coins sent the Liquid federation address a message demanding that Blockstream "pay 10% using your own money as bug bounty" or "cause all your holders a 15% loss," and moved its full 598.5 BTC balance back to itself in the same transaction. Liquid's operators said at 19:55 UTC on September 10 that block production and transactions have resumed on Elements v23.3.4 with peg-outs still disabled; as of 13:20 UTC today the actors' address still holds 598.5 BTC and the federation address about 3,601 BTC.

10 Sep 2026

Markets
Published 18:12 UTCKraken API

Bitcoin Trades Below $77,000, Giving Back the 3 September Rally

Bitcoin traded at $76,957 on Kraken at 18:10 UTC on 10 September after a day's low of $76,677, the lowest since 2 September; Coinbase showed a 24-hour low of $76,630. The move unwinds the 3 September rally, when Kraken's daily close was $81,276. US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $46.6 million on 8 September and $120.2 million on 9 September, per Farside Investors' tally of issuer figures.

7 Sep 2026

Policy
Published 17:13 UTCmempool.space

3,400 BTC Returned to Liquid's Federation Address. The Actors Kept 598.5 BTC.

Blockstream told the self-described white hats on-chain at 09:41 UTC on September 7, in a message signed with its published security key, that "bridge nodes are patched, safe to return the funds"; the actors asked for the return address to be confirmed again at 12:43 UTC and sent Blockstream an encrypted note at 15:31 UTC. A transaction paying 3,400 BTC to the Liquid Federation's reserve address confirmed in block 965,950 at 16:09 UTC, returning about 85 percent of the 3,996 BTC that left on September 6; the same transaction sends 598.5 BTC back to the actors' address. The federation address now holds about 3,597 BTC against roughly 4,205 L-BTC outstanding before the incident, Blockstream's Liquid explorer shows no new block since 04:49 UTC, and no public Elements release or post-mortem has appeared.

Policy
Published 10:21 UTCmempool.space

Liquid Is Paused After a 4,000 BTC Peg-Out. The Coins Have Not Moved Back.

The Liquid Federation's reserve address paid 3,996 BTC to a customer address at 14:28 UTC on September 6 after a 4,000 L-BTC order passed through SideSwap's peg-out service with valid federation signatures; Liquid and SideSwap attribute the L-BTC to a bug in the Elements software and say no key was compromised. The recipient, self-described on-chain as "whitehats", proposed returning "most" of the coins and then, at 03:30 UTC on September 7, told Blockstream to "fix the bug first" and patch every node before any transfer back; Blockstream answered with a message signed by its published security key. As of 09:55 UTC the recipient address still holds 3,998.5 BTC, the federation address holds 197.5 BTC, the sidechain is paused, and Blockstream has published no patch or post-mortem. Correction, September 7: at publication this Wire omitted a message Blockstream had signed on-chain at 09:41 UTC, "Bridge nodes are patched, safe to return the funds." SG's pre-publication check missed it. The public-release statement above was accurate; the state of the exchange was not complete.

6 Sep 2026

3 Sep 2026

Mining
Published 20:25 UTCmempool.space

Three Pool Labels Built Almost 60 Percent of Last Week's Blocks

In the one-week window read from mempool.space at 19:50 UTC on September 3, Foundry USA built 285 of 1,022 blocks, AntPool 173 and F2Pool 152. The three labels together account for 59.69 percent of the window. The same three labels held 57.59 percent on August 29, when they built 240, 180 and 153 of 995 blocks. Foundry alone moved from 24.1 to 27.9 percent. The estimated network hashrate attached to the same response was 914 exahashes per second. Pool labels are inferred from coinbase tags and payout addresses. They record where blocks are assembled, not who owns the machines behind them, and hashrate can move between pools without any announcement.

Mining
Published 20:25 UTCblake2bminer.com

The BLAKE2b Fork's Difficulty Quadrupled. Its Blocks Still Arrive Seven Times Fast.

The BLAKE2b fork chain retargeted for the second time at block 965,664, mined at 10:05 UTC on September 2, according to a status page an operator publishes from their own node. Difficulty rose to 71,371,438, which the page describes as "exactly 4x, the most one adjustment allows," after an adjustment window that "ran at 31 seconds a block." The correction did not close the gap. The page records the chain at height 966,538 at 11:58 UTC on September 3 and says the current window is "running 90 seconds a block," still roughly seven times faster than Bitcoin's ten-minute target. It dates activation to block 961,640 on August 30 at 06:14 UTC, with the coinbase string "8-30 NYPost Deride And Conquer," and says hashrate "passed 2 PH/s within two days." Satoshi Gazette has not independently verified the node behind the page, and it records no exchange or wallet support for the chain.

Markets
Published 20:25 UTCCoinbase Exchange API

Bitcoin Trades Above $81,500, a Level Last Seen in May

Bitcoin traded at $81,542 on Coinbase Exchange at 19:50 UTC on September 3 with the daily candle still open. The session ran between $76,929 and $81,645, and the last daily close at or above that level was $81,727 on May 11, 2026. The three preceding sessions closed at $78,563, $77,399 and $77,307. Measured from the year's low of $57,717.55 on July 1, the September 3 level is 41.3 percent higher, and it is 27.3 percent above the close thirty days earlier. The figure is provisional. The daily candle does not close until 00:00 UTC, and Satoshi Gazette reads the level rather than the settled close.

2 Sep 2026

Mining
Published 22:59 UTCGitHub

Bitcoin Knots 29.4.1 Ships the BLAKE2b Hard Fork as a Final Release

Bitcoin Knots published version 29.4.1 at 19:02 UTC on September 2 as a final release carrying a change of proof-of-work from SHA-256d to BLAKE2b, a temporary 800,000-weight block limit of about 300 kilobytes, and a new opt-in SIGHASH_UNIFIED signature format. Its notes describe the majority chain as "a new altcoin" promoted by "former miners" and advise anyone who intends to spend coins there to re-send them to themselves with the new format first; the notes say third-party wallets may need upgrades and name no supporting software beyond the release itself. Nothing changes for holders who do not install it: the release affects only nodes that run it. Spending across the split without the new format carries replay exposure, the notes say. Corrected September 7: an earlier version said only the fork's own software supported the new signature format; the release notes do not say that.

31 Aug 2026

Markets
Published 21:58 UTCsec.gov

Strive Adds 1,800 BTC as Class A Share Count Rises by 3.58 Million

Strive bought 1,800 BTC from August 24 through August 28 at an average price of approximately $79,431 including fees, taking its holdings from 21,356 BTC to 23,156 BTC. Over the same reported comparison, Class A shares outstanding rose by 3,579,147 to 83,470,035, while effective common shares rose to 93,262,570. SATA preferred shares outstanding increased by 803,099 to 9,073,914, and cash and cash equivalents rose by $11.6 million to $183.5 million. The filing does not calculate bitcoin per fully diluted share, and its assumed fully diluted count excludes traditional warrants. It supports the purchase and share-count changes, but not a conclusion that per-share bitcoin exposure improved.

Markets
Published 21:57 UTCsec.gov

Strategy Sells 4.53 Million Shares, Buys 4,603 BTC and Repurchases STRC

Strategy sold 4,531,421 MSTR shares for $602.8 million in net proceeds from August 24 through August 30. It used $369.7 million to buy 4,603 BTC at an average price of $80,318, $151.8 million to repurchase 1,557,177 STRC preferred shares, $50.7 million to fund STRC dividends, and $30 million to increase its USD Cash account. The company held 845,050 BTC at August 30, acquired for an aggregate $63.73 billion at an average price of $75,412. Its separate USD Reserve stood at $5.10 billion and USD Cash at $1.61 billion. The filing is a capital-allocation disclosure, not only a purchase update: all four uses were funded with common-stock sale proceeds.

30 Aug 2026

Mining
Published 20:38 UTCPR Newswire

Luke Dashjr Leaves OCEAN; CONVOY Is Announced, Not Yet a Pool

OCEAN and Luke Dashjr say they have separated by mutual agreement. Dashjr resigned as chairman, chief technology officer and director, and OCEAN parent Mummolin repurchased all of his equity. Their joint statement attributes the split to different visions for Bitcoin mining after recent protocol developments, but does not identify the disputed proposal, the value of the transaction or replacement leadership. OCEAN says its transparent, non-custodial pool will continue serving miners. Dashjr will pursue a new venture called CONVOY, but the announcement provides no pool endpoint, code, fees, participating miners, template policy or launch date. The verified event is a leadership and ownership split. Whether miners or block-construction policy move with it remains an open, measurable question.

Markets
Published 20:38 UTCGitHub

Bitcoin Core 32.0 Enters Bug-Fix-Only Stretch

Bitcoin Core 32.0 reached feature and translation-string freeze on August 20, according to the project's release tracking issue. That moves the next major version into a bug-fix-only stretch before the 32.x branch and first release candidate, both currently targeted for September 10. The final v32.0 tag is targeted for October 10. These are planning dates, not a released binary or a promise; node operators should wait for signed release artifacts and verify them through Bitcoin Core's normal release channel.

Policy
Published 20:38 UTCACINQ release

Eclair v0.14.2 Hardens Node Edges, ACINQ Urges Upgrade

ACINQ published Eclair v0.14.2 on August 26 and says it "highly recommends" upgrading because malicious nodes can exploit some of the fixed issues (ACINQ release). The project does not say those issues are being actively exploited. The release caps pending unauthenticated connections, limits gossip queries that can consume routing-table resources, and makes safecookie the default for Tor control authentication. Its notes also describe fixes affecting channel reserves and on-the-fly funding. ACINQ says bitcoind should run on the same machine as Eclair or connect through an encrypted, authenticated tunnel. The patch is compatible with previous Eclair versions: operators do not need to close channels; they can stop Eclair, upgrade, and restart.

Mining
Published 20:38 UTCBlockstream explorer

Bitcoin Difficulty Drops 1.31% at Block 963,648

Bitcoin mining difficulty reset to 125.81 trillion at block 963,648, down 1.31% from the prior epoch. The change slightly eases mining conditions for operators who remain online, all else equal, but the retarget alone is not evidence of capitulation.

Policy
Published 20:37 UTCUmbrel App Store

Umbrel Restores Core Lightning; Upstream Docker Warning Still Stands

Umbrel now lists Core Lightning 26.06.7 and says its app has removed the emergency offline mode, reconnecting nodes for sends, receives and routing. That does not clear Core Lightning’s upstream Docker warning: the published elementsproject/lightningd:v26.06.7 and :latest images still report the new version without containing the fixes. The safe path depends on the package an operator actually runs, not the version badge it displays.

29 Aug 2026

Markets
Published 23:58 UTCGitHub

Bitcoin’s HWI Will Stop Adding Features After MuSig2

HWI maintainer Ava Chow says the project will finish MuSig2 support, stop accepting new features and device integrations, and then issue what is likely to be its final feature release. HWI will remain under minimal maintenance until a suitable drop-in replacement is ready rather than being archived immediately; Chow named the work-in-progress Rust project BHWI as a promising successor. The transition matters because HWI connects Bitcoin Core and other wallet software to hardware signing devices, while its development has largely depended on one maintainer.

Policy
Published 23:57 UTCGitHub

Core Lightning 26.06.7 Fix Is Out; Current Docker Images Do Not Contain It

Core Lightning has released 26.06.7 to fix confirmed vulnerabilities, but its current release note warns that the automatically published elementsproject/lightningd:v26.06.7 and :latest Docker images do not contain the fixes even though they report the new version. Operators are told not to use those images as an upgrade; use signed tarballs, verify the checksums and signatures, and restart—or keep the daemon running with --offline until they can upgrade. The vulnerability details and source remain under embargo until September 11. The project has committed the later source archive hash in the signed release manifest, but the exact flaw, severity, affected-version range and exploitation status remain undisclosed.

Policy
Published 20:08 UTCGitHub

BTCPay Server 2.4.3 Tightens Access Boundaries; Shared Hosts Should Upgrade

BTCPay Server 2.4.3 remains the latest stable release five days after publication. The project calls it a security release and recommends upgrading, especially on servers shared by many users. No later release or amended note was present in the official release inventory when Satoshi Gazette rechecked it on August 29. The public comparison with 2.4.2 shows a broad access-boundary hardening pass: tighter permission checks around user API keys, server-admin store membership and legacy store tokens; current-password verification for email or password changes; narrower exposure of invitation URLs; and added controls on public form and NFC request paths. The diff does not establish that every change belongs to one vulnerability, and the project has not published an advisory naming the flaw, severity, affected-version range or active exploitation. That is the self-hosting bargain in concrete form. BTCPay lets a merchant accept Bitcoin without handing payment control to a processor, but no intermediary can patch a self-hosted server on the operator’s behalf. Operators should identify the version they run, preserve a recovery path and use BTCPay’s official upgrade procedure. Until the project discloses more, the defensible message is direct: shared-server operators have a current reason to upgrade, while everyone else should avoid inventing an attack story the evidence does not provide.

28 Aug 2026

Policy
Published 00:12 UTCDelving Bitcoin

LND Flaw Put Pre-0.20.0 Channel Funds at Risk After Reorg

An LND vulnerability fixed in v0.20.0 could let a malicious channel peer take up to the full channel balance if a collaborative close received one confirmation, that block was reorganized out and the attacker then broadcast a revoked commitment. Before the fix, LND forgot the closed channel after the first confirmation and would not publish the penalty transaction; merged PR #10331 now waits for multiple confirmations and tracks replacement spends through reorgs. Discloser Bastien Teinturier says no affected users are known; operators running pre-0.20.0 should upgrade to a maintained release.

27 Aug 2026

Policy
Published 20:06 UTC@Core_LN on X

Core Lightning Says Upgrade Promptly When Security Fix Lands

Core Lightning told node operators to verify and install its signed security release promptly when it lands, clarifying that they do not need to shut down. Operators who do not upgrade should restart with --offline, which closes peer connections and payment routing while keeping the daemon watching the chain and able to respond to a counterparty force-close; the flag must be removed after upgrading.

26 Aug 2026

Mining
Published 13:41 UTCsec.gov

Bitdeer to Add 1.93 EH/s at Soluna's Texas Wind Site

Soluna Holdings said a Bitdeer subsidiary plans to deploy about 28 MW of Sealminer A2 Pro Air equipment—roughly 1.93 EH/s—at the 83 MW wind-powered Project Kati 1 in Texas, with the rollout expected to begin in September. Soluna will provide the site, power and operations while Bitdeer owns the machines and the parties share mining proceeds; the SEC-filed release does not disclose the revenue split, a minimum commitment or other financial terms.

Policy
Published 13:41 UTCEUR-Lex

EU Extends Russian Ownership Ban to All Crypto-Service Firms

An EU amendment that took effect Aug. 25 extends a prohibition on Russian nationals and people residing in Russia owning, controlling or holding governance posts in EU crypto firms beyond wallet, account and custody providers to every crypto-asset service defined by MiCA. The change concerns ownership and management of EU providers, not a new retail-access rule; separate EU provisions already restrict providing crypto-asset services to Russian nationals and residents.

23 Aug 2026

Policy
Published 21:10 UTCGitHub

Bitcoin Core Contributors Weigh CJDNS Deprecation

Bitcoin Core contributors are weighing whether to deprecate CJDNS, an optional encrypted peer-to-peer network path, after Andrew Chow reported that one seeder database held 25 CJDNS addresses, reached 22 and marked only seven good. Several contributors backed deprecation, while another argued that recently documented auto-peering and CJDNS's value as a backup route deserve more time. Issue #36041 remains open in the 32.0 milestone with no branch or pull request, so Bitcoin Core still supports CJDNS and no warning or removal has been merged.

Mining
Published 21:10 UTCsec.gov

Bitcoin Mining Host Bitari Files for $30 Million IPO

Bitcoin mining host Bitari filed to sell 4,285,715 shares at an expected $7 each, targeting $30,000,005 in gross proceeds. The preliminary S-1 says public buyers would own about 10% of the 43,085,715 shares outstanding after the base offering, AI Power X would retain 85.87% voting power, and new investors would face $6.31 per-share dilution against $0.69 of as-adjusted net tangible book value. Nasdaq has not approved the BIAI listing application, and the offering cannot close without that approval.

Policy
Published 20:35 UTCCoinkite blog

Coldcard Makes User Entropy Mandatory for New Seeds

Coinkite’s current standard firmware—5.6.1 for Mk4/Mk5 and 1.5.1Q for Q—requires each newly generated standard seed to add at least 65 unpredictable key presses, 50 physical die rolls or 128 physical coin flips to device entropy. The company says installing the update does not repair an existing affected seed: users must generate a new seed and move every funded balance unless the advisory’s exact private 50-roll exception applies. Coinkite says its independent checks were targeted, not a complete audit, and a formal postmortem is still in progress.

Markets
Published 20:18 UTCeCash Alpha explorer

eCash Alpha Splits From Bitcoin at Block 963,648

The eCash project’s Alpha chain diverged from Bitcoin at block 963,648 and had produced 26,310 additional blocks by 19:38 UTC Sunday after starting at difficulty 1, according to the project’s live explorer. The rollout remains a practice phase for a separate Drivechain network: the project plans permanent ECX for block approximately 973,728 around October 31, while the fork does not change Bitcoin’s chain or BTC balances.

22 Aug 2026

Markets
Published 18:20 UTCCNBC

Bitcoin Closes Week Up 22% as Treasury Move Revives Debasement Trade

Bitcoin closed Friday around $77,000, up roughly 22% for the week, after a US Treasury intervention pulled long-term yields lower and a $2.7 billion short squeeze accelerated the move, according to CNBC, while the Financial Times linked the rally to renewed demand for debasement hedges.