Rabbit Hole Recap: Bitcoin Week of 2021.03.01

— CoinJoin enforcement escalating: Bottle Pay flagged Samourai Whirlpool deposits and Bitstamp flagged Wasabi withdrawals, with users now required to disclose post-mix destination addresses; exchanges are tightening KYC/AML policies around privacy tools despite their legitimate use.

— I2P network support merged into Bitcoin Core 0.22.0: Anonymous network protocol added alongside existing Tor support to prevent IP leaks when broadcasting transactions, improving network-layer privacy.

— Zcash sidechain demo on Regtest: Paul Stork demonstrated a drive chain proof-of-concept using Zcash on Regtest; still requires BIP 300 development but shows progress on future Bitcoin scaling without mainnet risk.

— Whirlpool CLI v0.10.10 update: Major performance improvements, removal of mixed target selection, and new multi-UTXO TX0 support; multi-party TX0s coming to break the TX0 heuristic and improve privacy at entry.

— Arthur Hayes negotiating Bitcoin Max surrenders terms: Hayes is coordinating with U.S. prosecutors from Singapore, negotiating in-person court appearance conditions rather than submitting immediately; co-founder Samuel Reed is in custody while Benjamin Delo is in London.

— Mining ASIC supply constraints: New miner shortage driven by foundry floor space limitations, supply chain disruptions, and publicly traded companies holding machines they cannot profitably deploy; downward difficulty adjustment expected this week.

— Bitcoin currently trading at $48,275; Marty's $65,000 prediction from last week remains unmet.

— GBTC and QBTC premiums inverted to approximately –4% discount (previously at significant premiums).

— Bitcoin-to-gold ratio climbing sharply to 28.2 oz per BTC at +8.31% weekly gain.

— Block height 673,152; 88.78% of all Bitcoin circulating; difficulty adjustment downward by –1.3% expected within 24 hours.

— Hash rate holding around 147–153 exahash/second, lagging price appreciation over the past six months (price up ~5x since September 2020, but hash rate only modestly higher).

— Samourai Whirlpool liquidity pool at 1,979.31 BTC (~$95.6 million USD equivalent).

— Do not deposit into regulated KYC exchanges if using CoinJoin: Keep minimal funds on exchange platforms and assume your withdrawal or deposit may be flagged; maintain self-custody with hardware wallets and use off-ramps sparingly for conversion to fiat.

— Test seed phrase recovery before sending funds: Use a second device or temporary wallet to confirm you can recover your private keys correctly; if recovery fails, seek professional help from established recovery services (e.g., walletrecoveryservices.com, not random emails) rather than sending keys to unknown parties.

— Increase Whirlpool volume through adoption: The larger the liquidity pool and number of users, the stronger the privacy guarantee; use post-mix tools (PayJoin, stowaway, multi-party coin joins) alongside CoinJoin for layered privacy and to break on-chain heuristics.