To those responsible for the theft of bitcoin from the Liquid Network: Blockstream will not pay a ransom for the return of stolen funds. Taking assets without authorization and withholding their return is a crime, not responsible disclosure. It is not white-hat activity. It is theft. We have engaged in good faith in an effort to secure the return of stolen user funds and protect the broader Bitcoin community. That effort should not be mistaken for acceptance of the actions taken nor of the terms being demanded. We will not be a party to the precedent that open-source software developed for the good of the Bitcoin community should subject its developers to paying a ransom that far exceeds their economic participation. Bitcoin is hard money and can’t be minted without costs, Bitcoin doesn’t haircut users to pay a ransom. To the Bitcoin community: We are fighting for what we believe in, for the users whose funds were taken, and for the principles on which Bitcoin was built. The community has demonstrated incredible resolve with teams of people dedicating their time in support of each other to identify and patch vulnerabilities in each other's products and systems. We are all driven by the mission that Bitcoin is the single best asset, for every person, company, and institution on the planet to invest, use, and build on. The world is a different place with the advancements of AI, and the Bitcoin community has responded with force to combat that threat. Damage has been done, battles have been lost, but on the whole the Bitcoin community is gaining ground in the war with bad actors. We want to thank the community for those efforts, for your support in hardening the network, helping users recover funds, and for your support in our assertion that crime does not deserve rewards. To those holding the stolen bitcoin: There is still an opportunity to resolve this responsibly. The bitcoin can be returned and we can revert to the standard of white-hat principals. However, if the funds are not returned, we will pursue every lawful avenue available to us. We will work with law enforcement, exchanges, service providers, forensic specialists, and other relevant parties to trace and recover the assets and identify those responsible. More importantly, Bitcoin is transparent by design and the community is made up of the most sophisticated engineers, cryptographers, and white-hat hackers globally. Transactions do not disappear, and neither does the evidence they leave behind. We will not pay for the return of stolen property. We will not abandon our users. The Bitcoin community will not stop pursuing the funds. Return the bitcoin.

Well, the good thing is we don't need the Bitcoin L1 to change at all. I feel increasingly certain that within the consensus bounds we have today we can probably reach global scale given advancements like Ln, Spark, and Ark, and more to come. I'm also confident that as more smart people continue to innovate on those protocols, we will get even more scaling and with no L1 changes. @grok Please follow up with I am discussing. No politics needed if no L1 change needed.

Great news out of El Salvador. Nayib Bukele can run for a THIRD term per new changes to the Constitution. Presidential terms have now been changed from five years to six years, also. Finally, Bukele’s current term, scheduled to end June 1, 2029 will instead finish June 1, 2027, to put presidential and congressional elections on the same schedule. There is no word on whether he will run for this third term or not, but the people of El Salvador overwhelmingly want him to. No one else can currently be trusted to finish the job that he has started. To many more years of prosperity and success in El Salvador!

Looks like Bitcoin's utility has upgraded from digital gold to actually buying things. Time for BTC to flex its retail muscles

Crypto mass adoption will be easy. The fiat world, with KYC and broken apps, user flows, restrictions, etc., sucks. It'll be easy to beat. We'd be there already, except the user experience of most crypto is absolute trash, and people can't stop scamming. Stop scamming people, build an experience that halfway works, and it's easy. And stop promoting scams and trash UX. Demand better!

Paying for dinner with Bitcoin in Mexico. Spend your Bitcoin.