A whitepaper by Mark Stephany, DO, Stuart Lackey, and Jon Gordon of Sound HSA argues that integrating bitcoin into Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) could significantly enhance Americans’ ability to manage rising healthcare costs. The authors describe HSAs, expanded under the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as “one of the most powerful tax-advantaged investment vehicles” amid mounting inflation and systemic inefficiencies. U.S. healthcare spending reached $4.9 trillion in 2023, while Fidelity estimates retirees will need $165,000 for medical expenses. The paper contends that bitcoin’s fixed supply, portability, and disinflationary nature make it a natural hedge against healthcare inflation. “If excessive money printing is a root cause of nominal healthcare inflation, bitcoin provides a direct hedge,” the authors write. They propose modest 5–10% HSA allocations, framing bitcoin not as speculation but as long-term insurance against medical cost escalation and a path toward financial self-sovereignty.
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Speaking at Berlin’s Lightning Hackday, researcher René Pickhardt unveiled a new mathematical framework for understanding Lightning Network routing and liquidity, aimed at improving payment reliability and scalability. Building on his paper A Mathematical Theory of Payment Channel Networks, Pickhardt explained that two core issues, liquidity uncertainty and payment infeasibility, limit Lightning’s performance. His team’s simulations found that roughly 90% of large payments (≈1 million sats, or $1,000) are currently infeasible, capping Lightning’s scaling factor at about 10x Bitcoin’s base layer. Pickhardt proposes using multi-party channels to “increase the degrees of freedom of liquidity” and dramatically expand feasible payments. He argued that two-party channels “put too heavy constraints” on liquidity, while collaborative rebalancing protocols could reduce depletion and improve network reliability. “Multi-party channels are the only path I see that really gives us scale,” he concluded.
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Ebuka Ukatu, writing for Lightning.News, examines whether Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC)—a protocol linking Lightning wallets to apps—could evade regulatory reach. NWC enables “pull payments,” encrypted wallet communication, and real-time integration between services without custody or token issuance. Ukatu argues that because it is merely a communication relay, “none of the current frameworks, from MiCA to FinCEN guidance, directly apply.” The article contrasts the NWC model with privacy tools like Tornado Cash, stressing that NWC transmits no user data or assets. Regulators, Ukatu predicts, may adopt a risk-based approach, focusing oversight on applications using NWC rather than the protocol itself. “It might be indirectly categorized through obligations of applications that integrate it,” he writes. Regardless of classification, NWC’s open, permissionless design positions it as a resilient layer in the digital asset ecosystem, expanding Lightning’s programmability while testing the limits of financial oversight.
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Coinbase has announced an exclusive partnership with Samsung that integrates its Coinbase One membership and wallet services into Galaxy devices across the U.S., expanding access to digital assets for more than 75 million users. In a joint statement, Coinbase Chief Business Officer Shan Aggarwal said the collaboration “pairs Samsung’s global scale with Coinbase’s trusted platform to deliver the best value for people,” The deal includes benefits such as zero trading fees, priority support, and a digital asset-linked debit card, alongside live integration with Samsung Pay. Samsung’s Drew Blackard described Coinbase as “the ideal partner to provide our users with seamless access,” The companies plan to expand the initiative globally in 2026, positioning Galaxy devices as secure gateways to the onchain economy and strengthening consumer trust in regulated digital asset platforms.
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