In August we saw ViaBTC and Bitmain create the Bitcoin Cash fork/altcoin. SegWit finally activated after half a year of stalling and the price rose to unprecedented heights. New spam attacks and empty block mining by Antpool created a large backlog of transactions with unprecedented transaction fees as well. Meanwhile Coinbase became a fintech unicorn, Blockstream launched its satellite service and BitPay pushed its clients towards a chainsplit. An incredibly positive month all around!

What the monthly news is about:
Each day, usually around the same time, I pick out the most popular/relevant/interesting stories in r/bitcoin and save them, after which I release them in one batch after the month ended. This gives you a quick (but not necessarily the best) overview of what happened in bitcoin over the past month.

A recap of Bitcoin in August 2017

01: ViaBTC creates an altcoin called Bcash and creates the next normal bitcoin block that gets rejected by that network & Bcash proves that major exchanges do have their Bitcoin reserves
02: We’re halfway through the SegWit activation period, so far so good
03: A great reminder that being an early adopter doesn’t guarantee you’ll profit substantially
04: A description of how different Bitcoin subreddits see each other
05: Bitcoin rises over $3k on all exchanges & A quick reminder why Bitcoin was invented in the first place
06: Bitcoin’s performance vs. stocks and precious metals in 2017
07: Bitcoin hits a new all-time-high of $3400 with a $56B market cap & Draft release notes for Bitcoin Core 0.15
08: SegWit activation locks in, many hats were eaten this day
09: Fidelity, a $2.3T investment business, is integrating cryptocurrency viewing from its clients’ portfolios & BTC-e announces its plan to gradually refund clients
10: Coinbase raises $100M at a $1.6B valuation
11: Bitcoin hits a new all-time-high of $3700 & The Lightning Network is now in feature freeze for its first release & Bitfinex will no longer be available for people in the US
12: Nothing but memes about the price
13: Bitcoin hits a new all time-high of $4000 & Protonmail launches automated Bitcoin payments in beta
14: People get excited about the Bitcoin market cap surpassing PayPal’s market cap, while we should look at transaction volume & Bitcoin on the front page of the Wall Street Journal again
15: Blockstream announces its satellite service which broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain around the world regardless of Internet connectivity or censorship
16: Forbes writes some backwards stuff about Bitcoin despite having a senior editor for cryptocurrencies & David Sacks from PayPal says Bitcoin fulfills their original vision for PayPal
17: BitPay pushes its clients towards a chainsplit
18: Correcting misinformation on SegWit2x and btc1 & The bank of Canada posted a research paper in 2016 on a Bitcoin currency standard & Photos of one of the largest bitcoin mines in the world
19: Kraken’s CEO is not amused that SegWit2x proponents are not including replay protection, putting the entire ecosystem at risk
20: A reminder of the scheduled attempt at a corporate takeover of Bitcoin in November
21: The first satellite-received cryptocurrency transaction
22: Bitwala backs out of the SegWit2x group & Electrum wallet is adding Lightning support
23: People are happy SegWit will activate within 24 hours & The Huobi and OKCoin exchanges illegally invested $150M of client deposits into wealth management products
24: SegWit activates and people compete to be the first for SegWit transactions
25: Bitfury mines the first legitimate 1MB+ block & Antpool compensates with empty blocks & Vietnam is preparing to legally recognise Bitcoin by 2018
26: A reminder that the next large attack on Bitcoin will happen in November through the SegWit2x group
27: A discussion on sane Bitcoin advice
28: Uber has a new Bitcoin-friendly CEO & SegWit accounts get enabled in Trezor beta wallet & Tadge Dryja on Discreet Log Contracts
29: Bitcoin hits a new all-time-high of $4600 with a $75B market cap & SegWit is supported by Ledger’s hardware wallets
30: A discussion on the performance of Bitcoin Core 0.15.0 & A broad picture of the Bitcoin price since its first valuation
31: F2Pool resigns from the SegWit2x agreement & The BTC-e exchange is back online after going offline for over a month & Bitmain starts to patent a lot of mining related things