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The FBI has given a standard "Glomar response" to a journalist's request for info on Satoshi Nakamoto. They won't confirm or deny having records on Bitcoin's creator. Investigative journalist Dave Troy shared this development on X on August 13. The FBI's response hinted that Satoshi might be a "third party individual". Troy plans to appeal the decision. He's not after Satoshi's identity. He just wants to know what the FBI has on the subject. Satoshi's true identity has been a hot topic since 2008. That's when the Bitcoin whitepaper dropped. No one's cracked the code yet. Some reckon it might be Hal Finney, an early Bitcoin contributor. Finney passed away in 2014. Troy thinks if the FBI thought Finney was Satoshi, they'd have no issue releasing his file. This isn't the first time the FBI's played hard to get. A similar request in 2018 got the same non-answer. Craig Wright, the Aussie computer scientist, has long claimed to be Satoshi. But he might be in hot water now. He could face perjury charges in a UK court for his statements. In a plot twist, Wright recently slapped a legal disclaimer on his website. It says he's not Satoshi. This comes after eight years of saying he was. We know next to nothing about the real Satoshi. Their P2P Foundation profile suggests an April 5, 1975 birthday. Go figure. The last we heard from Satoshi was in 2011. They told developers they'd "moved on to other things". Talk about ghosting an entire community. So, the Satoshi mystery continues. The FBI's tight-lipped response has only added fuel to the fire. It's got the crypto world buzzing again as we will probably never calm down about the fact we don't know the identity of the man who is responsible for all that crypto hysteria.

Amir Taaki, a veteran Bitcoin developer, has created what he claims is the world's first fully anonymous onchain decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The project aims to "defend freedom" in the digital realm. Taaki announced the launch on X on August 12. "More than ever, we need anonymous DAOs to defend freedom," he stated. The DAO's design ensures complete anonymity. It's invisible on the blockchain. So is its treasury and transactions. Member identities and token ownership? Hidden. Proposals and voting? You guessed it – also anonymous. "Everything about this DAO is designed to be completely anonymous and invisible on the blockchain," Taaki explained. The system allows for calling any smart contract. This includes treasury fund transfers. DAO actions remain concealed. Payments don't reveal treasury info. Receivers stay anonymous. Taaki argues that DAOs should be "anonymous and subversive". His main goal? Protection against oppressive regimes. "DAOs were envisioned as the post-corporate online future for mobilization and wealth creation of communities," he said. "This vision got stuck and eventually fizzled out." The British-Iranian hacktivist slammed the current state of the internet. He claims it's too reliant on surveillance and data harvesting. Anonymous DAOs, in his view, could create free, uncensored, and sovereign online organizations. Taaki is working with DarkFi. The team claims to be developing anonymous tools for online organizations. Their aim? To harness "the true power of cryptocurrency." The project has turned heads in the crypto community. Nick Almond, CEO of Factory Labs, called it "cypherpunk AF". He added, "It's a primitive. A privacy building block. My mind is bending with how this changes DAO game theory. Gonna be interesting." DAO governance has been a tricky business for crypto and DeFi projects. Management challenges stem from the lack of traditional hierarchies. This can lead to unclear leadership roles. Another issue? Unequal token distribution. It can centralize control into the hands of a few whales. This goes against decentralization principles. Several DeFi protocols, like Uniswap and Compound Finance, have faced such governance issues in recent years. Will Taaki's invisible DAO solve these problems? Or will it create new ones? Only time will tell. But one thing's for sure – the crypto world is watching.

Marathon Digital Holdings is making waves. The US-based Bitcoin mining firm has a new trick up its sleeve. They're stamping "Made in USA" on all Bitcoin blocks they mine stateside. The company announced this move on X. "MARA is Team USA, proudly declared in each American-made bitcoin block we mine," they wrote. CEO Fred Thiel is all in on this patriotic push. He's committed to labeling US-mined blocks with the stamp. Every block from their MARA Pool in the States will get the "Made in USA" tag. Thiel's pretty chuffed about it. He reckons Marathon's the only big player who can pull this off. "The only large scale miner who can do this because we run our own pool," he boasted. This stunt follows Donald Trump's recent Bitcoin comments. The presidential hopeful wants all remaining Bitcoin to be "Made in the USA." He made this claim on his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump sees Bitcoin as a potential shield. He thinks it could be "our last line of defense" against a central bank digital currency (CBDC). But not everyone's on the same page. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in March that the US is "nowhere near" any form of CBDC. At the Bitcoin 2024 conference, Thiel shared his two cents. He reckons Bitcoin mining could "flourish" under Trump. The exec thinks Republicans have "seized the day" on this topic. Marathon Digital isn't just stamping Bitcoin. They're also buying it up like there's no tomorrow. On July 25, they snapped up $100 million worth of BTC as a treasury reserve asset. The company's going "full hodl" on Bitcoin. That's crypto-speak for holding onto their coins for dear life. They're not stopping there, either. On August 12, Marathon announced a $250 million offering of senior convertible notes. The plan? Use the cash to buy even more Bitcoin. Looks like they're betting big on the red, white, and blue of Bitcoin mining.

MicroStrategy's Bitcoin gamble has paid off big time. The company's stock has skyrocketed 1,000% since its first Bitcoin purchase. Warren Buffett told us Michael Saylor with his MicroStrategy would fail, because Bitcoin is 'a fraud', you know, and he couldn't have been more wrong. It's been four years since MicroStrategy took the plunge. On August 10, 2020, they became the first public company to use Bitcoin as their main reserve asset. Basically, Saylor just started buying Bitcoin like there was no tomorrow. And he is still doing this today. MicroStrategy now holds 226,500 BTC. That's worth a cool $13.771 billion. They snagged these coins at an average price of $37,000 each. Bitcoin's currently trading around $59,500. Do the math, and you'll see they're sitting on unrealized profits of about $5.3 billion. That would be a big deal even for Buffett. Ho is probably just envious, right? And MicroStrategy is not selling. Nope, not a single coin. In fact, they're doubling down. Their most recent purchase was on August 1st. So they keep buying as the price goes up, which might again seem a very questionable strategy. Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy's main man, is giving Buffett a run for his money again and again, pushing for Bitcoin Maximalism strategy and HODL philosophy which is still considered as 'crap' by many respected financial leaders. And yet, MSTR stock has surged 1,000% since August 2020. That's 1.5 times better than Bitcoin itself and 16.25 times better than the S&P 500. How is that even possible? And how is Buffett doing? Oh, he is doing fine. By all means. Except for Bitcoin standard. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock (BRK.A) is lagging behind. It's only gained 104.75% in the same period. Buffett's been a bit of a grump about crypto, and it's cost him. Remember when Buffett called Bitcoin "rat poison squared" back in 2018? His buddy Charlie Munger went even further. In 2021, he predicted Bitcoin would crash to zero, calling it a "disgusting product". Ouch. But here's the real kicker: Bitcoin and MSTR have outperformed Buffett's top stock picks. We're talking Apple, American Express, and Bank of America. Not too shabby for a "rat poison", eh? Not everyone's on board the MicroStrategy train, though. Some traders are looking to short MSTR stock. Kerrisdale Capital reckons it's trading at an "unjustifiable premium" to Bitcoin. Sahm Adrangi, the big cheese at Kerrisdale Capital, told Cointelegraph: "The software business is worth a billion, maybe a billion [point] five, somewhere in between — it's not worth very much." He added, "Bitcoin prices have to go up for the value of the company to increase. If they go down the value of the company goes down. The company should be trading at the value of Bitcoin. Our argument is 'go short MicroStrategy, go long Bitcoin.'" So there you have it. MicroStrategy's Bitcoin bet is still a hot topic. Whether it's genius or madness, only time will tell. But for now, Saylor's laughing all the way to the bank.

A new hacking method dubbed "Dark Skippy" has Bitcoin users on edge. It can steal private keys from hardware wallets with just two transactions. The vulnerability affects all hardware wallet models. The catch? Attackers need victims to download dodgy firmware. But once in, it's game over. Security researchers Lloyd Fournier, Nick Farrow, and Robin Linus spilled the beans on August 5. They're not your average Joes. Fournier and Farrow co-founded hardware wallet maker Frostsnap. Linus co-developed Bitcoin protocols ZeroSync and BitVM. Here's the kicker: malicious firmware can hide bits of seed words in transaction signatures. These signatures hit the blockchain when transactions go through. Attackers then scan for these signatures. But wait, there's more. The signatures only contain "public nonces," not the actual seed words. Clever hackers use Pollard's Kangaroo Algorithm to crack the code. This math wizardry, courtesy of John M. Pollard, solves the discrete logarithm problem. It's a real head-scratcher for crypto nerds. The researchers claim they can nab a user's full seed words with just two signatures. It doesn't matter if the seed words came from another device. Talk about a security nightmare. This isn't totally new. Older versions used "nonce grinding," a slower method needing loads more transactions. But the researchers aren't calling "Dark Skippy" a brand-new threat. So, what's the fix? Hardware wallet makers need to up their game. They suggest "secure boot and locked JTAG/SWD interfaces" and "reproducible and vendor signed firmware builds." Users aren't off the hook either. The report recommends keeping devices in "secret places, personal safes, or maybe even tamper-evident bags." A bit of a hassle, no? Another option? "Anti-exfiltration" signing protocols. These stop hardware wallets from cooking up their own nonces. Bitcoin wallet flaws have caused big losses before. In August 2023, over $900,000 worth of Bitcoin vanished due to a Libbitcoin explorer library bug. In November, Unciphered warned that $2.1 billion in old wallets might be at risk from BitcoinJS wallet software issues. The crypto world's got its work cut out. "Dark Skippy" is just the latest in a long line of security headaches. But for Bitcoin believers, it's all part of the game.