Greetings Bitcoiners!
First off, happy new year! 2025 is behind us, and was another unique year in many respects. As I reflect on each year I experience as an adult, I'm reminded of the old expression, "may you live in interesting times."
Here are some things that 2025 brought us in the realm of Bitcoin:
📈 The Four-Year Cycle Broke: The widely known and widely expected 4 year price cycle broke: the meme is "3 greens and 1 red", referring to yearly historical price candles. Up 2011, 2012, 2013, down 2014. Up 2015, 2016, 2017, down 2018. Up 2019, 2020, 2021, down 2022. Up 2023, 2024, then down for 2025? BTCUSD did indeed end the year lower than it started, however if you compare 2025 against the other down years, it looks more like a flat year than a down year. Those other three red years each booked USD losses of over 50%, whereas 2025 was down by a mere 6%. Bitcoin breaking these patterns is to be expected. People are pattern recognizing machines. Pattern recognition was a very valuable tool in caveman times...the human who recognized that seeing bear cubs is correlated with a mother bear being in the vicinity was likely to be better off than the human who didn't. The pattern recognition abilities engrained in us over generations is prone to errors, though. People can sometimes think they see patterns where none actually exist. Did a 4 year cycle pattern exist historically for BTCUSD? Yes. Should you base your decisions on such a pattern continuing into the future? No. Stay humble, stack sats, and stack skills.
🧾 Square Made Bitcoin Easier for Merchants: Square rolled out native Bitcoin support for its POS systems. That means small businesses can now accept bitcoin with just a few taps. Want to spend sats locally? Check btcmap.org to find merchants near you. This is how circular economies grow!
⚖️ Samourai Developers Sentenced: The Samourai developers were sentenced and imprisoned. This is probably the darkest news in the space for 2025. See the newsletter from Dec 17th for a deeper dive into the details. A silver lining: these guys were pretty divisive in the space prior to their 2024 arrest. Many bitcoiners were fans, many weren't. The flame wars got hot between different coinjoin wallet teams in 2019-2021, and there was other drama over the years too. 2025 saw bitcoiners come together in support of Rodriguez and Hill, and in a strong voice called out an injustice levied upon two of their own.
🔑 Proof of Keys Day — January 3: This month marks the eighth Proof of Keys Day celebration. What's Proof of Keys Day, you ask? Trace Mayer, an OG bitcoiner with a somewhat complicated history, started promoting Proof of Keys Day in late 2018, to coincide with Genesis Block Day (celebrating the anniversary of the first block being mined in 2009) on January 3rd. One of the mantras in Bitcoin is "not your keys, not your coins".
One of my favorite quotes from Satoshi: “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.”
The core power of bitcoin is that it can be used in a sovereign way, AKA without having to trust someone else to send or receive a payment on your behalf. When bitcoin is held on an exchange, you're trusting the exchange in multiple ways:
That they're actually acquiring the bitcoin on your behalf, instead of, say, Bermuda real estate for themselves (FTX)
That the bitcoin they're acquiring isn't being held by a single person, who might end up dying under mysterious circumstances (Quadriga CX)
That they are storing their giant stack of bitcoin in a way that's not vulnerable to hackers (Bitfinex)
That they'll actually send you your bitcoin when you ask for it
That they haven't been running a fractional reserve, planning that they can conceal the fact so long as enough people don't request withdrawals at one time
Proof of Keys Day has the effect of lowering the tide for exchanges, so everyone can see who's actually been swimming naked. Participating in Proof of Keys Day is easy for you and I, easy for solvent exchanges, and a nightmare for fraudulent exchanges. All you have to do is, if you have bitcoin on an exchange, withdraw it into your own custody on January 3rd. The exchange says that you have 2 million sats, right? That's what they're showing you on their screen, anyway. Prove it! Send the sats.
A caveat: be comfortable and confident in your self-custody setup prior to withdrawing your hodl stack to your own wallet. Even though it's Proof of Keys Day today, if you're not comfortable and confident in your self-custody setup, it's not advisable to send your hodl stack. Start with a small amount, and become comfortable and confident with your setup. Keep stacking skills and building confidence! If you've never withdrawn from an exchange before, this can be a learning experience for you as well. Does your exchange have a daily/weekly/monthly withdrawal limit? Are withdrawals free of charge, or do they charge a withdrawal fee? Going through the process teaches you about your exchange's processes.
Next event is our monthly coffee meetup. January's cafe is Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg. Come and join us at 1pm on Sunday, Jan 25th, 2026! Denim now accepts bitcoin, payable through any lightning enabled wallet.
Keep stacking sats, keep stacking skills.
Bitcoin in the Burg
Provide value to others
Spend less than you earn
Save in a money that can't be printed by someone else for free