Bitfinity Weekly: Bitcoin Pizza Day

Welcome to Issue #159 of Bitfinity Weekly for our #BITFINIANS community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.

What's in Today's Email?

• Bitcoin Bytes
• Global Crypto News
• In the IC
• This Week in our Blog
• Tweet of the Week
• Infographic Insights
• Meme Time
• A Matter of Opinion

Bitcoin Bytes

Angel Numbers: Summer is heating up and so is Bitcoin as it rallied to a new ATH (all time high) this week, breaking past $111,000 on Thursday. This new milestone comes amid a bevy of positive news regarding large scale adoption: The Texas House of Representatives passed landmark legislation to create a state Bitcoin reserve this week, Bitcoin ETFs saw total net inflows exceeding $667 billion, and as the community celebrates Bitcoin Pizza Day's 15th anniversary.

Pizza Party: MARA Holdings celebrated Bitcoin Pizza Day by unveiling their third mempool block art, marking the first real-world Bitcoin transaction on May 22, 2010, when Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC (now worth over $1.1 billion). MARA, a digital asset technology company known best for their Bitcoin mining branch, partnered with Gemini exchange to create a "Pizza Block" mempool art, using different fee rates to produce an image directly on the block.

Dog Days: Bitcoin memecoin $DOG is set to be spot listed on Kraken, making this the first time a Rune will be available on a Tier 1 U.S. crypto exchange. $DOG, launched via a fair airdrop to early Bitcoin Ordinals adopters, operates on the Runes Protocol, a fungible token standard on Bitcoin that enhances efficiency over predecessors like BRC-20 by using Bitcoin’s native UTXO model and OP_RETURN for on-chain data storage. Kraken further confirmed that they are working on native integration for Runes on their platform.

Global Crypto News

Sue and See: Decentralized exchange Bancor, is suing rival Uniswap for patent infringement, claiming Uniswap used its constant product automated market maker (CPAMM) technology, patented by Bancor in January 2017. Uniswap currently dominates with $3.8 billion in 24-hour trading volume, while Bancor ranks at #142 in the list of DEXs by volume, seeing just over $378k in 24-hours.

Put on Pause: The Sui ecosystem faced a major setback as its largest decentralized exchange, Cetus Protocol, suffered a $200 million oracle manipulation attack. Attackers exploited vulnerabilities in Cetus' smart contracts using spoof tokens to manipulate price calculations, causing popular Sui tokens to plummet 76-97% in value within an hour. The attacker bridged $61.5 million in USDC to Ethereum before Cetus paused its contracts to prevent further losses.

We're So Back: South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) will allow non-profit organizations and exchanges to sell cryptocurrency starting in June, lifting a 2017 ban to balance oversight. Non-profits must meet strict conditions, including five years of audited operations. Exchanges can sell crypto to raise operating capital but face daily limits, are barred from using their own platforms, and are restricted to the top 20 coins by market cap. The FSC has also tightened the criteria for memecoin listings to reduce market instability.

First Mover Shuffle: Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed a stablecoins bill on Wednesday, establishing a licensing regime for fiat-referenced stablecoin (FRS) issuers to enhance investor protection and financial stability. The new law, set to take effect later in the year, requires issuers to obtain a license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and comply with strict regulations. The legislation aligns with global regulatory trends to regulate stablecoins, as Hong Kong aims to position itself as a global digital asset hub.

In the IC

More Support: OISY wallet's latest update v1.4.6 makes it even better, with Polygon integration seeing native token support for $POL, as well as $USDC and $USDT stablecoins for easy swaps. Improved UI, an ICPSwap integration, and even more token support (like $XTC and $vEUR) means it's easier than ever to conduct crosschain swaps from ICP.

Caffeinated Agents: Have you seen the latest episode of ICP United? The seventh installment of this series focuses on the advancement of decentralized AI on ICP, and showcases Caffeine AI, on-chain large language models (LLMs), and Bitcoin integration via Chain Fusion. Caffeine AI enables the creation and hosting of entire decentralized applications without coding knowledge.

Go Go ICP: BitGo, a major crypto custody provider, now supports ICP, enabling institutions to securely hold ICP tokens using regulated custody solutions. ICP’s unique features like canister smart contracts and chain-key cryptography allow it to operate without centralized infrastructure, offering scalability and security, which BitGo leverages for upcoming staking and dApp token custody services.

This Week in our Blog

Bitcoin’s steadfast simplicity is now being reimagined as a launchpad for smart contracts and DeFi. Bitfinity's innovations aim to bridge Bitcoin's core strengths with the flexibility of modern programmable ecosystems.

The Resistance to Change in Bitcoin: Unlocking Bitcoin’s Programmability

Discover the untapped potential of Bitcoin as a programmable platform and the crucial role Bitfinity plays in bridging Bitcoin with smart contracts, DeFi, and the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

Bitfinity BlogHans

Tweet of the Week

Infographic Insights

Just deployed your smart contract on Bitfinity? 🎉 Ready to see it in action? Here’s how you can check it out:

Meme Time

A Matter of Opinion

Thursday marked the 15th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, a day that celebrates the first documented real-world transaction using Bitcoin. Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer from Florida, made history in 2010 by trading 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas, valued at roughly $41 at the time. Today, with Bitcoin’s price soaring past $111,000, those pizzas are worth over $1.1 billion, earning the title of the most expensive meal in history.

This iconic transaction, facilitated through a BitcoinTalk forum post, was a truly historic moment that served as a pivotal, landmark moment for the cryptocurrency movement. Bitcoin Pizza Day (May 22) is more than a nostalgic anecdote, it’s a cultural touchstone for the entire crypto community. Hanyecz’s experiment demonstrated that Bitcoin could function beyond theoretical code, paving the way for its adoption in real-world commerce.

As for Hanyecz, reflecting on the event, has felt no regrets for purchasing the world's most expensive meal, telling outlets like Cointelegraph that it was “incredibly cool” to be part of Bitcoin’s early history. His lighthearted perspective underscores the pioneering spirit of the time, when Bitcoin was a niche project for tech enthusiasts. This year's anniversary happily happened to coincide with Bitcoin reaching a brand new all-time high of $111,800, highlighting its remarkable growth from pennies to a market cap rivaling tech giants like Amazon.

Globally, the crypto community has come to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day with gusto. Organizations like PizzaDAO held events IRL, while exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and BTSE hosted promotions, giveaways, and challenges. Mining and technology company MARA and centralized exchange Gemini celebrated with a artistically mined Bitcoin block.

Bitcoin Pizza Day continues on as tradition and an enduring legacy of Hanyecz’s forward-thinking transaction. Call us cheesy (wink) but it's also a day to reflect on how a simple pizza order helped pave the road for this global financial revolution we are all a part of, demonstrating that innovation often starts with seemingly trivial acts. For being in this journey we raise a slice to you, Bitfinians! 🍕

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