BR035 - OpenSats, Nunchuk, BTC Map, BRC-20 Mania + MORE ft. Sjors, Nicholas Gregory & Daniel Prince
I’m joined by guests Sjors Provoost, Nicholas Gregory & Daniel Prince to go through the list.
Housekeeping
Bitcoin
Software Releases & Project Updates
00:01:59 MyCitadel v1.3.0
MyCitadel 1.3 ships with support for more advanced miniscripts with account- based time-locked multi-sigs and multiple user interface improvements.
Account-based multi-sigs with time-locks and complex miniscript descriptors. This adds ability to compose complex time-locked conditions involving same signers in different time-locks (for instance having 2-of-4 multi-sig which in 1 year becomes 1-of-2).
00:02:38 Zeus v0.7.5
Android: smaller release binaries
New camera w/ Samsung Galaxy support
New Payment Path view
Handle display of In-Flight payments
External link warning + prompt modal
NFC modal for Android
iOS: clear saved settings on uninstall
Settings: Display: Show all decimal places
Lightning Address: handle addresses hosted on Tor
Fix some views where inputs were getting cut off by the keyboard
LNURLw patch for fixed amounts
New currencies
00:06:40 Nunchuk
00:12:14 Blockstream Green
iOS v4.0.3
Add import of watch-only wallets through xpubs and descriptors from QR codes or files
Allow import of Coldcard watch-only in generic json and electrum format
UI improvements for smaller screens
Android [v4.0.1]
Overhaul onboarding UI with and without hardware wallets;
Allow multiple account types in a single wallet, bitcoin and liquid, singlesig and multisig;
Add more currencies in settings for singlesig wallets
Jade support for liquid singlesig wallets
00:14:32 Bluewallet v6.4.1
Fix price rates and ability to search for currencies
Startup performance improvements
Fix Payjoin implementation
GUI styling improvements
Bip47 payment codes receive support
ADD: Bitstamp support for iOS widgets and watchOS
ADD: CoinGecko
ADD: JA language app store files
ADD: LKR Fiat
ADD: Search currency
ADD: Use performance improving props for large lists
ADD: performance measure button on settings/about screen
00:15:33 Blixt v0.6.7
Common:
Updated lnd to v0.16.2
Added fee estimation for Lightning payments
Added the ability to use all available onchain funds when manually opening a channel
Added the ability to create a wallet with a passphrase (25h word)
Android:
Merged app GUI and lnd to the same process, this should help with app stability
00:18:05 Bitcoin Tribe v2.1.5
Create or backup your wallet with Bitcoin Keeper
00:18:14 Keeper 1.0.3
Import single-sig wallets into Keeper
Backup with Keeper. Use Keeper to safeguard any of your single-sig Bitcoin wallets
Purpose and path back-end enhanced
UX/UI enhanced throughout the app
00:19:15 Swisspay v1.7.0
Auto-fiat conversion: Receive your bitcoins straight into your bank account (EUR / CHF only)
Create your account directly in-app
00:25:57 coinkite-tap-protocol v1.2.2
better “cktap upload” command w/ many more options
ripemd160 imported (build issue)
ascii armour on signatures improved
00:29:00 RoninDojo v2.0.0
Updated the pgp key file
Added the RoninDojo support PGP public key
Updated BTCxZelko’s pgp public key entry
Switched expected OS from Manjaro to Debian
Added update script that warns v1.x users to migrate to v2 via flashing
Added use of tune2fs on the backup drive when installing it, to maximize usage of the backup drive’s storage space
00:29:42 BTC Map Android v0.6.5
Translations: French, Russian, Spanish, Thai
Show translated place names, when available
Improve dark mode support
Improve search
00:40:05 BTC Pay Server
New plugin: LN Prism allows to automatically split sats (post-settlement)
00:40:16 Joininbox v0.7.7
Use a custom change address when sending with or without a coinjoin
00:40:37 Parmanode v2.3.4
BTCPay on Linux!
Tor
Docker
Slightly better menus
00:41:30 Trezor v23.4.2
Coinjoin
Released into public beta! 🎉
Available for Trezor Model T
Firmware update
Trezor Model T firmware update with new UI (v2.6.0)
Upload full screen custom backgrounds on Model T
00:44:28 Mercury Wallet Blinded Two-Party ECDSA
A new pull request has been submitted, enhancing privacy and using groundbreaking cryptography with blind signatures
PR implements the blind signature feature, both on the server, and on the client
The client generates a blinding factor and blinds the partial signature via homomorphic scalar multiplication and then sends it to the server (SE).
The server signs without knowing the content of the transaction and the r part of the signature is also not sent to the server.
The client then unblinds the signature returned by server to get the final signature.
It also verifies the signature (r,s) against the message (transaction) and the shared public key.
Project spotlight
00:51:00 Soma: Spacechain-inspired Open Market for Assets by Fiatjaf
Spacechains can be used for all your wild ideas that need a blockchain, as long as they don’t require a native currency (such as a bitcoin).
In the demo, we have a fully-fledged blockchain that does one very boring thing: let’s you issue and transfer non-fungible assets, each having a deterministically-generated unique identifier.
It does that without requiring any shitcoins to be created in the process or spam to be dumped into the Bitcoin chain.
All it needs is SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT to be activated on Bitcoin – luckily it is activated on signet.
00:52:06 Preturnio - a full-text search engine for Bitcoin.
Search for text inside every OP_RETURN, Coinbase transaction and ordinal transaction since the genesis block
Enter the text you’re looking for and Preturnio will return highlighted results found in any OP_RETURN, Coinbase or Ordinal transaction. See when the data was created, which block it was confirmed in and other relevant details.
You can search for anything: source code, names, quotes, brc-20 tokens – any plain text you can think of
00:53:23 bitcoinisdata - Hard-to-get Bitcoin metrics and visualizations
Presents Bitcoin metrics as beautiful visualizations.
Provides raw data to download in CSV or XLSX formats, updated hourly
00:53:41 satmap.app [Website/Twitter] - Find and connect with local Bitcoin businesses.
Directory intended to help Bitcoiners find and connect with businesses that accept Bitcoin payments, both locally and globally
00:53:52 Orange Pill App
Events are live
Lightning
Software Releases & Project Updates
00:57:40 Wallet of Satoshi 2.1.13
New - WoS Point of Sale Mode!
Fix - Allow case insensitivity when checking LNURL Fallback scheme (LUD-01)
Fix - Success Screen didn’t always show in some time zones
Other minor bug fixes and improvements
00:58:08 Rust Lightning v0.0.115
The MSRV of the main LDK crates has been increased to 1.48
Attempting to claim an un-expired payment on a channel which has closed no longer fails. The expiry time of payments is exposed via PaymentClaimable::claim_deadline
payment_metadata is now supported in Invoice deserialization, sending, and receiving (via a new RecipientOnionFields struct)
Event::PaymentFailed now exposes a failure reason
BOLT12 messages now support stateless generation and validation
The NetworkGraph is now pruned of stale data after RGS processing
Max inbound HTLCs in-flight can be changed in the handshake config
lightning-transaction-sync feature esplora-async-https was added
A ChannelPending event is now emitted after the initial handshake
PaymentForwarded::outbound_amount_forwarded_msat was added
ChannelManager::list_channels_by_counterparty was added
ChannelDetails::feerate_sat_per_1000_weight was added
Invoice::fallback_addresses was added to fetch bitcoin types
The offer/refund description is now exposed in Invoice{,Request}
00:58:42 lnd v0.16.2-beta
The mempool scanning logic no longer blocks start up. The default polling interval has also been increased to 60 seconds.
00:58:51 LNBits SaaS
You can now spin up your own @lnbits instance paid in sats per hr on http://lnbits.com
Currently in BETA
00:59:09 Alby
Allows users to import their existing bitcoin lightning wallets into apps
Developers can offer one-click or even automated bitcoin payments with just a few lines of code
Be the first and try it out on Amethyst and connect your Alby account
Have a look at the Alby SDK to get started quickly and integrate NWC into any JavaScript-based application.
Lighting Bridge implements WebLN
Lighting Bridge allows swapping altcoins to bitcoin using the Alby Browser Extension.
Lighting Bridge’s implementation of WebLN eases the process for users considerably.
00:59:42 Voltage NIP5 & Lightning Addresses
Voltage releases their Nostr Toolkit.
@vlt.ge NIP5 identifier
Ability to receive Zaps directly to Voltage node. (Or you can connect to your own node!)
01:00:18 Bolt.observer
On-chain funds levels: Keep your node running smoothly by ensuring your on-chain funds don’t get depleted
Sync to graph:Ensure you detect when your node loses sync with the graph
Sync to chain: New alert ensures you know about the sync status of your node.
01:00:29 Mutiny Node v0.2.8
LNURL Auth with multiple profiles have been added.
Try mempool’s API scheme first in case the user configured to a mempool esplora instance.
Can now open channels to the CLN LSP.
01:01:03 Lightning Loop
Set musig2 to be the default swap protocol.
01:01:37 Nayuta Wallet v0.1.7
Support for payment invoices that do not show the amount
Removal of the payment routing request confirmation
01:02:25 Stacker News Subs released
01:03:12 Sphinx Relay v2.3.1
Feat/sentiment bot
Simplify loadLightning func
Update/sentiment bot
Cache stack test
Feat/cache integration
Project spotlight
01:04:16 Strom by Satimoto
An open source application that allows charge point owners to accept lightning payments for charging sessions.
It can be run locally to the charge point (e.g. on Umbrel) or on a hosted provider.
01:05:31 NFC wristband to LNURL for #Bitcoin tipping your bartender over lightning by Benjamin Woosley
01:05:40 LN Scratch
PLAY FREE SCRATCH CARDS EVERYㅤDAYㅤANDㅤWINㅤREAL BITCOIN.
Login using your Bitcoin Lightning Wallet of choice
Get 3 tickets every day
The ultimate goal is to fund this faucet solely with the help of donations. A faucet made by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners.
01:06:10 localsats [Website/Github]
Buy and Sell Bitcoin in person
Anonymously login with lightning
Create an anonymous order at the location you want to meet. Once someone responds to your order, meet up and complete the transaction in person.
Free and open source
01:06:18 Clams - A free and open source browser interface for securely and remotely controlling your Core Lightning node.
01:06:36 scribsat.com - Independent payments for your Ghost site
Scrib makes it easy to independently monetize content using the Bitcoin Lightning network.
Payments flow directly from supporters to creators, with no middlemen.
Nostr
01:08:43 Mostro - A lightning Network peer-to-peer exchange platform built on Nostr [Website/Github]
01:09:00 Coinstr [Github/App/Website]: Bitcoin [taproot] multi-custody
Using nostr to coordinate transaction signing for tapscript/miniscript spending policies
Coinstr is a bitcoin multi-custody protocol for spending policies and proposal execution
Coinstr uses nostr for discovering signers, saving policies & PSBTs, and orchestrating signatures with workflow
Coinstr eliminates friction for groups managing Bitcoin together
01:09:28 Swap Service - An orderbook for performing submarine swaps over nostr
Anyone who runs an LND lightning node can run swap service on their computer and hook it up to their node. This makes them a yield chaser.
As a yield chaser, you can set a few parameters like how many sats you are willing to swap, how much you have on the base layer, how much you have on lightning, and what fee you’ll charge for swaps.
When you’re ready, swap service will take your settings and display them as an offer on an open orderbook created on nostr.
Other folks can visit a simple website to view everyone’s offers. They can also select an offer and initiate a swap.
During the course of the swap, they will pay the yield chaser they selected a fee to do a submarine swap with them.
The yield chaser gets to keep the fee.
01:11:41 nostr-tx-broadcast by Benthecarman
nostr-tx-broadcast is a tool that listens to nostr relays for bitcoin transaction events and broadcasts them to the bitcoin network.
An implementation of nostr-protocol/nips#476
Does the following:
Generates a set of Nostr keys.
Creates a Nostr client and adds multiple relays.
Connects to the relays.
Subscribes to Bitcoin transactions (with a custom event kind of 28333) from the relays.
Listens for incoming Bitcoin transactions and decodes them.
Broadcasts the decoded transactions to the mempool.space API.
01:13:35 Munstr - An open source Musig privacy based wallet built on Nostr
Munstr (MuSig + Nostr) is a combination of Schnorr signature based MuSig (multisignature) keys in a terminal based wallet using decentralized Nostr networks as a communication layer to facilitate a secure and encrypted method of transporting and digitally signing bitcoin transactions in a way that chain analysis cannot identify the nature and setup of the transaction data.
To anyone observing the blockchain, Munstr transactions look like single key Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) spends.
This is facilitated through an interactive, multi-signature (n-of-n) Bitcoin wallet that is designed to enable a group of signers to coordinate an interactive signing session for taproot based outputs that belong to an aggregated public key.
01:14:22 Primal adds search functionality
Bitcoin Optech Newsletter
[248]
01:14:47 Proposed removal of BIP35 mempool P2P message:
Will Clark posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about a PR he’s opened to remove support for the P2P mempool message originally specified in BIP35
In its original implementation, a node receiving a mempool message would respond to the requesting peer with an inv message containing the txids of all the transactions in its mempool.
The requesting peer could then send a regular getdata message containing the txids of any transactions it wanted to receive.
The BIP describes three motivations for this message: network diagnostics, allowing lightweight clients to poll for unconfirmed transactions, and allowing miners who recently restarted to learn about unconfirmed transactions (at the time, Bitcoin Core did not save its mempool to persistent storage on shutdown).
[249]
01:15:35 MATT-based vaults:
Salvatore Ingala posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a rough implementation of a vault with similar behavior to the recent OP_VAULT proposals but which is instead based on Ingala’s Merklize All The Things (MATT) proposal.
MATT would allow the creation of very flexible contracts on Bitcoin through the soft fork addition of a few very simple covenant opcodes.
01:15:55 Analysis of signature adaptor security:
Adam Gibson posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list an analysis of the security of signature adaptors, especially about how they interact with multisignature protocols such as MuSig where multiple parties need to trustlessly work together to create adaptors.
Signature adaptors are planned for use in upgrading LN in the near-term to use PTLCs for improved efficiency and privacy. They’re also envisioned for use in a number of other protocols, again mainly to improve efficiency, privacy, or both.
Boosts
01:16:36 Thanks to everyone who streamed sats, and shoutout to our top boosters:
@erik99 (50,000 sats x2) “stay humble, stack sats”
@scarcity (50,000 sats) “wen Flipper Zero discussion”
@apemithrandir
(7,777 sats) “v4v”
(7,777 sats) “at the upper edge of technical understanding but quite enjoyable nonetheless”
(7,777 sats) “nostr sounds interesting”
@vake (3,000 sats x2)
@jcdenton (5,000 sats) “Fantastic panel, thanks guys!”
@dash (5,000 sats) “great high-signal episode and guests. I’m convinced OP_VAULT is critical to scaling Bitcoin”
Interlude
01:17:08 Chatting about the Bitcoin.Review podcast
01:20:05 Mempool congestion and BRC-20
News & Noteworthy
Bitcoin
01:31:13 Coinbase gets Bermuda license, plans to launch offshore exchange in coming weeks [Forbes]
Coinbase has received a license to operate in the offshore haven of Bermuda, signaling that the company is doubling down on plans to increase its international business at a time when U.S. regulators have become hostile to the crypto industry.
01:31:23 Bitcoin is now available on Telegram in the @wallet web interface [Announcement]
All @wallet users are now able to buy, withdraw, and exchange Bitcoin directly through the web interface.
Previously, Bitcoin was only accessible in the text bot, but now all users in @wallet will be able to take full advantage of the web interface.
To get started, just select “Buy & Sell” and choose your preferred payment method, either via a bank card or the P2P Market.
01:32:00 Funds of every wallet created with the Trust Wallet browser extension could have been stolen without any user interaction [Ledger]
The Ledger Donjon has recently discovered a critical vulnerability in this browser extension, allowing an attacker to steal all the assets of any wallet created with this extension, without any user interaction.
By knowing the address of an account, it is possible to immediately compute its private key, then access all its funds.
01:32:24 Apple removes original Bitcoin whitepaper from the latest macOS Ventura beta [9to5mac]
01:33:11 Venmo rolling out Bitcoin and crypto withdrawals/transfers [Announcement]
01:34:28 Balaji Srinivasan’s million dollar bet is now closed out by mutual agreement [Blog post]
Balaji made $1M+ in provable on-chain donations
$500k to Bitcoin Core development via Chaincode (block explorer, tweet 1, tweet 2)
$500k to Give Directly (block explorer, tweet)
$500k to Medlock (block explorer, tweet)
01:34:52 Opensats announcement (breaking news!)
$10 funding received from Jack Dorsey’s Start Small fund
NVK and Gigi join board
Gigi to lead operations and strategy
Bitcoin daily transaction counts are approaching All-time-highs [Glassnode]
Inscriptions represent approximately 30% to 40% of mined transactions and 10% to 20% of fees paid
Coinbase International Exchange launched [Announcement]
Will enable institutional users based in eligible jurisdictions outside of the US, to trade perpetual futures.
Perpetual futures accounted for nearly 75% of global crypto trading volume in 2022, creating highly-liquid markets and offering traders additional versatility in their trading strategies.
Lightning & L2
Zeus announced Lightning Service Provider, Olympus
Sats4Files: Decentralized File Hosting based on Lightning [Proposal]
Allows users to request data from untrusted servers, and upon receiving the encrypted data, they can pay for the decryption key via Lightning.
The exchange is atomic, ensuring that the user only receives the data if they pay for it, and the seller only gets paid if they deliver the data.
The protocol is an efficient form of verifiable encryption, which is similar to verifiable secret sharing using Shamir’s algorithm.
Strike Expands “Send Globally” to Guatemala, Bringing Lightning-Fast Money Transfers from the U.S. to Latin America [Press release]
Shiro becomes the first RGB wallet on Umbrel [Announcement]
Shiro wallet is a web-server wallet, and can be integrated easily with other services by calling endpoints for the wallet.
Shiro at the current form is still very rough and alpha and only available on testnet for now. Nonetheless, you can issue, send and receive fungible RGB tokens, allowing you to experiment with the protocol and gain first hand experience.
The source code for Shiro Wallet is all open-sourced and available on Github.
BlueWallet Postpones Lightning Node Sunset Date to May 31 [Announement]
LNMesh: Who Said You need Internet to send Bitcoin? Offline Lightning Network Payments using Community Wireless Mesh Networks Paper Released
“In this paper, we propose LNMesh which enables offline LN payments on top of wireless mesh networks. Users of a neighborhood or a community can establish a wireless mesh network to use it as an infrastructure to enable offline LN payments when they do not have any Internet connection. As such, we first present proof-of-concept implementations where we successfully perform offline LN payments utilizing Bluetooth Low Energy and WiFi.”
“For larger networks with more users where users can also move around, channel assignments in the network need to be made strategically and thus, we propose 1) minimum connected dominating set; and 2) uniform spanning tree based channel assignment approaches. Finally, to test these approaches, we implemented a simulator in Python along with the support of BonnMotion mobility tool. We then extensively tested the performance metrics of large-scale realistic offline LN payments on mobile wireless mesh networks. Our simulation results show that, success rates up to %95 are achievable with the proposed channel assignment approaches when channels have enough liquidity.”
Nostr
Nostr Hack & Design announced the winners
Award ceremony available here
Build track winners:
Design track winners:
Zapstr: A music discovery and earning platform for anyone who makes music
Nostr Web Client UI + Zap page: Free and Open Source UI Design for Nostr Web Clients
Goodstr UI: Sell digital goods using ️Nostr & Lightning
Nostr hackathon with 35,000,000 SAT prize pool
Runs 1st April - 20th May
Mining
Block has made significant progress in the development of their ASIC [Blog Post]
Assembled a team of ASIC designers and developed initial designs
Completed the design of a high performing bitcoin mining ASIC on the five nanometer semiconductor node.
Acquired a large volume of bitcoin mining ASICs from Intel, and just completed a purchase agreement with Intel.
Moved forward with manufacturing a prototype of completed five nanometer design.
Expect to receive the prototypes back this fall.
The Kingdom Of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin For Years [Forbes]
The Himalayan kingdom confirmed it has been running a bitcoin mining operation
Bhutan’s Ministry of Finance did not respond to a list of questions from Forbes about the scope of the enterprise. It’s unclear when mining began, where it’s located and whether the scheme has turned a profit. (As for the start date, bitcoin was valued at $5,000 in April 2019.)
It’s also unclear why Bhutan never disclosed the project to its citizens or international partners.
Privacy
Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant [Blog post]
On April 18 at least six police officers from the National Operations Department (NOA) of the Swedish Police visited the Mullvad VPN office in Gothenburg with a search warrant.
They intended to seize computers with customer data.
In line with company policies, such customer data did not exist.
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev freed pending trial [The Block]
Alexey Pertsev, a Tornado Cash developer arrested in August by Dutch authorities over allegations of facilitating money laundering, will head home next week pending trial, a court in the Netherlands has ruled.
WhatsApp and Signal Threaten to End Service in UK if ‘Online Safety Bill’ Passed [Gizmodo]
Meta’s WhatsApp is threatening to leave the UK if the government passes the Online Safety Bill, saying it will essentially eliminate its encryption methods.
Alongside its rival company Signal and five other apps, the company said that, by passing the bill, users will no longer be protected by end-to-end encryption, which ensures no one but the recipient has access to sent messages.
Twitter is complying with more government demands under Elon Musk [restofworld.org]
The company has not refused a single request since Musk took ownership, according to self-reported data.
Since Musk took ownership, the company has received 971 government demands, and fully complied with 808 of them.
Before Musk, Twitter’s full compliance rate hovered around 50%; since the takeover, it is over 80%.
Coinbase Sued for Privacy Violations Over Customer Biometrics [Bloomberg]
Coinbase illegally collects face templates and fingerprints of its customers in violation of Illinois’ biometric privacy law, according to a proposed class-action lawsuit.
Funding
Lightning Network data company Amboss announces $4M seed round to power Bitcoin as a payments rail [Fortune]
Samara Asset Group Makes a Donation to Brink to Finance Ongoing Bitcoin Development [Announcement]
“Samara Asset Group is pleased to announce a $150,000 donation to Brink Technologies, a charitable Bitcoin development community strengthening the Bitcoin protocol and network through fundamental research and development.”
“Samara has made a commitment to continue this donation for the next three years to finance the annual salary of a developer contributing to the growth and development of the Bitcoin network.”
Fedi, Inc. Announces Raising $17 Million in Series A Round [Announcement]
Legal & Political
01:41:15 Jack Dorsey’s Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund Prepares For Case That Could Have Wide Ramifications For Open-source Developers
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization co-founded by Jack Dorsey, Alex Morcos and Martin White, is backing 13 Bitcoin Core developers facing lawsuits by Craig Wright.
01:43:15 Biden Administration Proposes 30% Tax on Bitcoin Mining [Whitehouse]
The Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) excise tax, After a phase-in period, would result in firms facing tax equal to 30 percent of the cost of the electricity they use in cryptomining.
01:43:35 North Carolina County Enacts One-year Ban On Commercial Bitcoin Mining [Bitcoin Magazine]
After a public hearing, Buncombe County voted to approve a moratorium on bitcoin mining in order to craft zoning standards and regulations for special land use.
Shoutouts
Free sound effects from https://www.fesliyanstudios.com
Breaking news animation from Vecteezy.com
Episode submission ideas
We’re looking for ideas for interesting panel conversations. To send Bitcoin related questions, just go to bitcoin.review and follow the contact links at the bottom of the page.
Get in touch with the pod
Nostr & LN ⚡nvk@nvk.org (not an email!)