SUNDAY, JUL12
1. USDT returns to Bitcoin, 2. The case for US compute, 3. BTCPay meets BTC Map, 4. Free the devs
From Proto and Bitkey - part of the Bitcoin ecosystem at Block, Inc.
1. rgb
Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino has amplified reporting that Tether plans to issue USDT natively on Bitcoin through the RGB protocol’s v0.11.1 release, with UTXO-based tooling leading the commercial rollout, in a short post reading Tether and Bitcoin, according to his post on X. If executed, the move would bring the world’s largest stablecoin back onto Bitcoin’s base layer using a client-side smart-contract system rather than a separate chain, a notable contrast to the Tron-centric plumbing that now carries most USDT volume. For a freedom-tech audience, the signal is less about endorsing stablecoins than about Bitcoin reclaiming utility as a settlement layer for open protocols: permissionless assets issued on permissionless money, without routing value through closed banking APIs. Whether RGB-based USDT gains real adoption depends on wallet support and liquidity, but Ardoino putting Tether’s brand behind a Bitcoin-native path is a substantive strategic shift worth watching, and a reversal of years of migration away from Bitcoin rails.2. compute
CleanSpark chief business officer Harry Sudock amplified a Financial Times argument by Josh Zoff that the United States cannot treat data centers the way it treated rare earths, as something to offshore and regret later, and framed large compute campuses as a practical way to finance a broader stack of advanced technologies, in a post on X. Sudock’s one-line endorsement lands in a week already dominated by the energy-and-AI collision: miners repriced as power landlords, grid interconnection queues measured in years, and political fights over where megawatt-scale load gets permitted. For a Bitcoin Park audience, the post connects mining’s long-standing thesis, that flexible financeable computing load can pull new generation online, to the wider industrial-policy debate over whether America builds its own compute base or imports dependence. The scarce asset remains energized land and dispatchable power; who secures it first shapes both AI and bitcoin infrastructure for the next decade.3. btcmap
BTCPay Server released its first BTCPay Day 2026 video, highlighting BTC Map and a new BTCPay BTCMaps plugin that ties merchant discovery to self-hosted payment infrastructure, according to the project’s post on X. The project stresses that BTC Map’s global merchant map may look like an overnight success but rests on years of free and open-source contributions cataloguing bitcoin-accepting businesses worldwide. Nathan Day walks through recent progress in the video. For a freedom-tech audience, the integration matters because it connects two sovereignty tools that often live in separate silos: a map that helps people spend sats locally, and payment software merchants can run without a processor in the middle. Real adoption is merchants plus checkout rails, and BTCPay and BTC Map are trying to ship both as composable open-source pieces, keeping the full loop of discovery and acceptance outside any single company’s control.4. samourai
Privacy advocate econoalchemist posted a terse call, Freedom for Bill and Keonne, linking to the campaign around Samourai Wallet co-founders William Lonergan Hill and Keonne Rodriguez, who were sentenced in 2025 after pleading guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, according to the post on X. The case has become a flashpoint in the fight over whether writing and operating non-custodial privacy software constitutes criminal money transmission, and it has drawn renewed attention after a US official signaled awareness of the developers’ situation. For a freedom-tech audience, the post is not nostalgia for a shuttered wallet but a live political and legal battle over whether open-source financial privacy tools can survive US prosecution. The underlying coins were always on-chain; the fight is whether builders who enable self-custodied privacy can do so without prison time, a question with direct stakes for every developer of permissionless software.Consider subscribing and sharing OP_Daily with your community.