8-12-2025
Monero takes a hit after Qubic pulls off a sustained 51% attack. Steak and Shake credits Bitcoin for record sales growth. Another Tornado Cash-linked developer is arrested - this time for publishing academic research. Cango buys a massive U.S. mining site. MetaPlanet keeps stacking, boosting its already huge corporate Bitcoin treasury.
Monerans just got a reality check. Qubic likely pulled off a 51% attack, and the fallout is exactly what you’d expect. People are scrambling to downplay it, but let’s be honest, if a chain’s security budget is small enough for one entity to rent hash and take control, the system’s trust assumptions are broken. Monero has been the “privacy coin” darling for years, but privacy doesn’t mean much if finality can be rewritten. This is the curse of smaller proof-of-work chains. Without enough mining power, you’re a soft target, and someone eventually takes the shot.
On the other end of the spectrum, Steak and Shake just proved Bitcoin can do more than take down the legacy financial systems of the world, it can also sell burgers. They credit BTC payments for record sales growth and why not? They gave customers an easy, fast, no-middleman way to pay, and the numbers lit up like a Christmas tree. Bitcoin is clearly useful for small and medium-sized businesses that want to cut fees, avoid chargebacks, and build loyalty with a customer base that actually values sovereignty.
Then we have another open-source tragedy. A developer tied to Tornado Cash was arrested. Not for laundering money, not for facilitating a crime, but for publishing academic cryptography research. If we criminalize the act of writing and sharing code, then we criminalize the foundation of the internet. The precedent here is toxic, and it’s already spreading beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum into broader privacy and security research.
Meanwhile, Chinese firm Cango dropped a big check on a massive U.S. Bitcoin mining site in Georgia. On one hand, capital is capital. If foreign firms see U.S. energy as the best place to mine, that’s validation. On the other, there’s a growing national security conversation about letting strategic assets, like mining infrastructure, be controlled by overseas interests. This story is far from over.
And then there’s MetaPlanet. These guys are quietly stacking like it’s a religion. Their corporate Bitcoin treasury keeps growing, putting them in the same conversation as MicroStrategy. They’re proving that the playbook works outside the U.S., and they’re doing it with conviction. Pure accumulation. If we’re heading into another parabolic run, MetaPlanet is going to be one of the names that headlines every “Top Corporate Bitcoin Holders” list.
The takeaway this week? The edges of the Bitcoin ecosystem, privacy coins, open-source devs, mining infrastructure, are where the biggest battles are being fought. Watch those edges. That’s where the future gets decided.
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