This month we saw an extensive analysis of $1B in bitcoin on the move, the Lightning Network surpassed 100 btc in capacity (but is also becoming harder to track by design), the biggest block yet was mined at 2.26MB, many articles were written on the efficiency of Proof-of-Work, an important bug was found and patched in Bitcoin Core, Samsung will be producing 10nm ASICs and much more!

What the monthly news is about:

For those unfamiliar, each day I pick out the most popular/relevant/interesting stories in r/Bitcoin and save them. At the end of the month I release them in one batch, to give you a quick (but not necessarily the best) overview of what happened in bitcoin over the past month.

A recap of Bitcoin in September 2018

01: A look into an illegal bitcoin mining operation in an abandoned power plant in Russia
02: An analysis of $1B Bitcoins on the move
03: The Lightning Network surpasses 100 bitcoin in network capacity
04: As the Lightning Network grows it will become more difficult to track its growth & The bitcoin price is at an all-time high in Iran & The legal status of Bitcoin globally & Someone working on a 3D cryptocurrency trading interface
05: A Bitcoin explainer someone spent a year on & A Chrome extension got hacked and tried to steal private keys to cryptocurrency wallets
06: The Goldman Sachs CFO on speculation about the bank’s bitcoin trading activities & Coinbase is exploring a bitcoin ETF
07: Someone tried to attack Slush’s Lightning Network node with a 12 bitcoin capacity
08: Someone paying with bitcoin in Rovereto, Italy at a 20% discount & The US and EU cut Iran off the SWIFT system through threatening SWIFT executives with criminal charges
09: Someone set up their Bitcoin full node + Lightning Network node following a Github tutorial & Someone pays for a car wash in Brisbane with bitcoin & How Roman coins took hundreds of years to lose their value
10: US regulators approve Winklevoss Twins’ fiat-backed stablecoin & Bitmain is now planning an IPO at 16% of their original size
11: A new Lightning desktop app by Lightning Labs & A bitcoin trust fund is approved in Canada
12: The biggest block yet is mined at 2.26MB & Hayek on taking money out of the hands of the government in 1984 & Google Play takes down misleading bitcoin wallets
13: Someone gets a speaker fee in bitcoin after speaking for developers at a bank & Morgan Stanley offers bitcoin derivates to its clients & A $193M bitcoin transaction for a $0.19 fee
14: A collection of articles and research on PoW’s efficiency & The release of the lnd v0.5-beta and C-lightning v0.6.1
15: A reminder that bitcoin can’t be eaten by the family pet
16: Bitcoin’s energy consumption in comparison to gold mining, paper money printing, the banking system and governments
17: The Robinhood investing app is making millions by selling user data to HFT firms
18: Visa and Mastercard forced to pay $6.2B for over-charging on credit cards
19: Japanese exchange Zaif gets hacked for $37M worth of bitcoin & A Butcher shop in Venezuela accepting bitcoin & There is a Bitcoin ‘glyph’ in iOS 12 & The Danske Bank CEO quits over a $234B money laundering scandal
20: Europol research shows that bitcoin has not been used to fund any terrorist attacks
21: An important bug is discovered and gets patched in Bitcoin Core 0.16.3
22: Bitcoin posters in Brighton
23: People discuss the long-term bitcoin price
24: Bitcoin from a teenager’s point of view & Bitcoin on who wants to be a milllionaire
25: Slush Pool introduces an open-source operating system for some of Bitmain’s mining machines & Google ends its cryptocurrency advertising ban & Scrabble adds Bitcoin to its dictionary & Bakkt on its first Bitcoin futures contracts
26: An infographic on merkle trees & Someone’s story of travelling across 18 countries using 1 btc
27: The future of Lightning by Elizabeth Stark & Samsung is planning to build 10nm Asic mining chips & Some cryptocurrency businesses in the US have asked US congress to hurry up with regulation
28: A discussion on why it is unwise to use bitcoin for crime
29: Swissquote advertises Cryptocurrency trading on some office windows
30: Someone created their own Lightning Network-powered Cola machine & The Prime Minister of Malta on blockchains and cryptocurrencies & People discuss how expensive bitcoin ATMs are