SATURDAY, MAR07
1. Mining as state fiscal strategy, 2. Long live LN, 3. Who considers, who owns?, 4. Paraguay MOU
Supported by Proto and Bitkey - part of the Bitcoin ecosystem at Block, Inc.
1. state
Writing in a three-part series, analyst Yves Bennaïm surveys how sovereign governments are deploying Bitcoin mining to address a structural problem created by the renewable energy transition: in 2024, global curtailment of renewable electricity exceeded 50 terawatt-hours, the equivalent of Norway's entire annual consumption, costing governments hundreds of millions in compensation payments to producers. The case studies range widely in ambition and outcome. Ethiopia generated $220 million in hard currency during its first year by directing hydroelectric surplus to Chinese mining firms at $0.03 per kilowatt-hour, then reversed course after grid reliability deteriorated for domestic users. Bhutan, mining quietly since 2019, has accumulated Bitcoin reserves worth roughly $600 million, nearly 30% of GDP, by treating mined bitcoin as a long-term sovereign asset rather than immediate revenue. Bennaïm frames the core insight, "It's not about financial speculation. This is energy economics, grid management, and state fiscal strategy." The series positions Switzerland, with its mature hydroelectric infrastructure, decentralized cantonal structure, and a central bank capable of absorbing domestically mined bitcoin as reserves, as unusually well suited to replicate the Bhutanese model at a measured scale.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY2. long
Breez CEO Roy Sheinfeld argues that Lightning Network has undergone something more significant than incremental improvement over the past two years, shifting from a direct end-user payment channel protocol into a common settlement language connecting a new generation of "last-mile" technologies. Writing on the Breez blog, Sheinfeld traces the arc through the company's partnership with Cake Wallet, which tested Breez's Greenlight SDK in 2024 but declined to ship it in production because liquidity management and offline receive limitations made the UX insufficient for everyday users. The turning point came with Spark, a next-generation statechain implementation that Cake is now taking into production. The new stack delivers offline payments, Lightning addresses, and near-zero fees without exposing users to channel management. Sheinfeld says the broader shift with layers like Spark, Fedimint, Cashu, Liquid, and Arkade that all "speak to each other in fluent Lightning," make an interoperable protocol backbone. The pattern suggests that Lightning's near-term growth will come less from protocol upgrades than from the proliferation of custodially-diverse layers that abstract its complexity while preserving bitcoin's finality underneath.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY3. considers
Roughly one in five American adults don't own bitcoin or other digital assets but would consider buying, according to a three-study analysis of nearly 5,000 U.S. adults published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services by Colorado State University researchers Erin Fitz and Kyle Saunders. The study finds that these "considerers" form a psychologically distinct group: they share demographic traits with existing owners (younger, male, higher openness to experience) but diverge on key drivers. Conservative policy preferences and support for AI development are "more strongly associated with considering than owning," while stock ownership and anti-establishment orientations correlate more with actual ownership. Investing risk tolerance consistently produced the largest effect, suggesting that perceived behavioral control over financial risk is the strongest determinant of crossing from consideration to purchase. Bitcoin dominates both groups, with over 87% of owners and 93% of considerers naming it first. The findings suggest the next wave of adoption may hinge less on ideology or personality and more on whether potential buyers believe they can navigate the risk.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY4. mou
Paraguay's state electricity utility ANDE has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bitcoin infrastructure firm Morphware to launch the country's first government-led mining operation, deploying roughly 1,500 machines confiscated from illegal operators who had stolen grid access or misclassified their businesses to obtain subsidized power rates. Morphware founder Kenso Trabing, framed the economic logic, "You're selling electricity for a fraction of what it can earn if you use it locally." The program targets Paraguay's surplus hydroelectric output, which the country currently exports at low rates, and redirects it toward domestic Bitcoin production under direct utility oversight. Morphware's role is strictly advisory, providing training and technical guidance while ANDE retains full ownership. On the revenue side, Morphware has recommended selling BTC futures on U.S. exchanges to stabilize government income and avoid direct custody risks, citing a past ransomware attack that compromised multiple ministries. If the pilot scales, Paraguay could become a template for how sovereign energy utilities convert stranded power capacity into structured digital asset revenue streams.
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