BR051 - Sparrow, COLDCARD, LND, Florestra, Swan Custody Risk, 20BTC Whoopsie + MORE ft. Craig & Rob
I’m joined by guests Craig Raw & Rob Hamilton to go through the list.
Quote of the Day
“It’s hardware that makes a machine fast. It’s software that makes a fast machine slow.” ~Craig Bruce
Housekeeping
00:01:47 Opensats
Long-Term Support For Sjors Provoost
He intends to focus on specific areas from time to time, such as Stratum V2 integration, AssumeUTXO, and hardware wallet support.
Launched the Nostr Design initiative [Announcement]
“The purpose of Nostr Design is to help open-source developers with product development, UI/UX, as well as general design considerations.”
Spearheaded by Karnage and Daniele.
Vulnerability Disclosures
00:03:13 Coldcard Donjon Faults SE2 on Mk4
00:07:24 A Bitcoin transaction confirmed on Sep 10 with a fee worth over $500,000 or 19 $BTC [Bitcoin Magazine]
“The transaction that paid nearly 20 BTC ($500,000) fee a few hours ago looks like an exchange or payment processor with buggy software. They’ve received 60,000+ txns and sent 60,000+ txns from the same address (bad practice) and likely calculated their change output incorrectly.” [Lopp]
“Will put these 20 BTC on hold for now. To be redistributed to miners if nobody comes to claim it after three days.” [Chun]
Paypal apparently responsible according to research by mononautical from mempool
00:12:12 DoS: Fake Lightning Channels [Matt Morehouse]
Lightning nodes released prior to the following versions are susceptible to a DoS attack involving the creation of large numbers of fake channels:
LND 0.16.0
CLN 23.02
eclair 0.9.0
LDK 0.0.114
00:15:11 Fortress, BitGo & Ripple customer funds controversy
Bitcoin
Software Releases & Project Updates
00:25:04 COLDCARD
Firmware v5.1.4
Bugfix: Most users would see a red light after upgrade to 5.1.3 from 5.1.2. Fixed.
Firmware v5.1.3
New Feature: Batch sign multiple PSBT files. Advanced/Tools -> File Management -> Batch Sign PSBT
Enhancement: Sparrow Wallet added as an individual export option (same file contents)
Enhancement: change key origin information export format in multisig addresses.csv to match #BIP380
Enhancement: Address explorer UX cosmetics, now with arrows and dots.
Enhancement: Linked settings (multisig, trick pins, backup password, hsm users and utxo cache) separation for new main secret.
ckcc-protocol release v1.4.0
Support for Miniscript (Edge)
00:28:11 Sparrow v1.7.9 (3 year anniversary! 🎉)
Add wallet accounts summary dialog (View menu)
Support import and export of keystore labels in descriptor (ur:crypto-output) QR codes
Propagate transaction label changes to inputs, outputs and addresses where their existing labels were set in the same manner
Upgrade to HWI v2.3.1
Suggest clearing any existing keystores when the script type is changed in the Settings tab
Add fulcrum.sethforprivacy.com public mainnet Electrum server
Avoid adding inputs when constructing a consolidation transaction replacement, allowing output to decrease
Add mempoolFullRbf config variable to enable RBF functionality on mempool transactions without checking sequence flags (default false)
Refactor transaction and UTXO table column sorting, add default sorting on new history if table was previously empty
Add tooltip to account tab where label is truncated
Add Jade multisig wallet import
00:32:46 libsecp256k1 v0.4.0
This release adds a new ellswift module that implements ElligatorSwift encoding for public keys and x-only Diffie-Hellman key exchange for them.
00:35:12 Liana v2.0: (un)conference season Latest
Features:
Now possible to re-use an xpub within a descriptor, so long as it uses a different derivation path
Added new RPC commands allowing for updating and querying labels of txids, addresses and outpoints
We’ve made RPC connection to bitcoind more robust
Now distributes packages for Debian-based and Arch-based Linux distributions.
A guide on how to recover a Liana wallet backup with Bitcoin Core was added.
An example config file for running lianad was added.
Worked around the use of prefixed-paths on Windows, allowing again the watchonly wallet at the same location as for other operating systems, under own datadir
GUI-specific:
The UX for creating a descriptor where a signer is present in different spending paths was significantly improved
The installation process, as well as the usage of the wallet, was made more user friendly by optionally encapsulating the management (download, start and stop) of the bitcoind.
00:35:37 BTC Pay Server
Minor update recommended for deployment stacks which were using MySQL/SQLite backend in the past such as Raspiblitz, Umbrel, Embassy OS.
New feature: Display wallet balance in default currency in the on-chain wallet navigation
Announced BTCPay App in development
We’ve teamed up with @spiralbtc & @lightningdevkit and began working on the BTCPay App.”
“Aiming to replicate the success and impact of the BTCPay Server for e-commerce payments, the BTCPay App is laser-focused on brick-and-mortar business.”
00:36:22 Florestra v0.5.0: “I promise I’ll use semversioning more often”
Use env var to pass xpubs
Parallel sync 1/n: Refactor: Move stateless code to a new module
Rate limit peers
Parallel sync 2/n: Partial chainstate
00:39:33 Robosats v0.5.2-alpha
New languages and translations
Update CLN plugin and CLN base version to v23.08
Add verbose order logs to coordinator panel: a detailed timestamped record of every change to an order from creation to finalization
Improved invoice descriptions
New coordinator maintenance messages
UX/UI improvements
New currencies
New admin actions for dispute resolutions.
Force PGP signed invoices and onchain addresses (multi-coordinator security)
New RoboSats Federation basis v0.6.0~1
Fix allow auth header to carry pgp keys: easier authentication for federation from browser
00:39:45 10101
Improve wallet sync speed by 100x (Use self-hosted esplora node)
Introduces self-custodial Synthetic USD using DLCs on the Lightning Network
Add synthetic usd feature
Fix delayed position update
Change contract duration to 7 days
Add settings in coordinator to make contract fee rate configurable during runtime
00:40:07 MyCitadel v1.5 (Blazing Venus) Pre-release
UI improvements
Add custom labels for the operation history
Supply historical operations with easy-to-read mnemonics (when an explicit label is not given)
Simplify wallet balance reporting (dashboard)
Introduce Bitcoin and satoshi symbols
Hardware wallets
Update HWI to 2.3.1
00:40:25 Bitcoin Tribe v2.2.3
Additional Border Wallet functionality:
Entropy Grid (Number)
Entropy Grid (Hexadecimal)
Entropy Grid Backup (digital file download)
Entropy Grid Regeneration (File Import)
23-cell pattern support
Passphrase support
Option to generate multiple Border Wallets
00:41:42 Nunchuk
Launched Byzantine: The collaborative custody platform for bitcoin advisors
Features:
Byzantine allows bitcoin advisors and their clients to create multi-user multisig wallets easily. Clients have control of their bitcoins, while advisors hold a backup key for security.
Byzantine provides tools for collaboration, wallet and key management, advisory services, and long-term inheritance planning to enhance your advisory services.
For security, Byzantine uses cold storage exclusively for keys and supports various hardware signing devices.
The software is designed natively and is available on both desktop and mobile platforms.
Only an email address is collected as required information, ensuring clients’ personal information remains confidential.
00:45:03 Simple Bitcoin Wallet v2.5.1
RBF/CPFP for hardware wallets
Multiple UI improvements
00:45:17 Labelbase
Added support for “origin” and “spendable” fields in BIP-329 format.
Resolved minor bug in the list overview API calls.
Released a Python guide for easy Labelbase API integration
00:48:23 libwally-core v0.9.2
This is the last planned release before wally moves to semantic versioning and a consistent ABI for elements/non-elements builds with release 1.0.0. Upgrading is recommended for all users.
Updates:
Fixes for huge transactions and PSBT/PSET files
Fix external linkage for BIP85 functions
Add missing psbt_is_input_finalized function
Build and packaging fixes
Feature Request Interlude
00:48:46 Simplex integration with Sparrow
Software Releases & Project Updates (Cont.)
00:53:39 Smart Vaults
00:56:05 Parmanode
BTC RPC Explorer can now be exposed via Tor, so you can access it from anywhere with a Tor browser, and the onion address.
00:59:15 Nodeyez v23.08
New Panels and Enhancements
Difficulty Epoch panel enhanced for pruned node support to estimate times
OP_RETURN panel now has more exclusion patterns by default
New Panel: Fee Estimates for graphing Bitcoin Fee Estimates
New Panel: LND Messages to display those received in invoices and keysends
General:
New utility script scaffolding new panel using templates
New helper functions for top and bottom anchored text
New helper functions for wrapping text to a width and calculating multiline text height
00:59:28 joinmarket-clientserver v0.9.10
Removal of Python 3.6 support, 3.7 or newer is required now
Python 3.6 has been end-of-life since end of 2021 and Python 3.7 is also minimum requirement for planned future packaging changes.
Fee estimation changes and fee bumping
Command line script bumpfee.py is added which gives simple way to speed up unconfirmed transaction by replacing it with higher fee paying one if all inputs belong to Joinmarket wallet (so will not work with coinjoins) and original transaction has signalled BIP125 opt-in RBF flag. BIP125 signalling is also enabled by default, in previous versions that was only possible with sendpayment.py by adding manually command line flag.
Wallet RPC API improvements
Two new API endpoints are added - /getinfo, which currently allows to get version of Joinmarket running in backend, and /wallet/recover, which allows recover wallet from seed phrase using API.
BIP21 bitcoin: URI changes
Multiple duplicate arguments with the same key, like amount, now is parsed in guarateed order, where last one wins. That matches behaviour of Bitcoin Core.
01:00:17 RoninDojo v2.0.2
Feature: Updated Ronin’s Dojo fork to v2.0.2
Based off upstream Dojo v1.20.0
Features: Updated Bitcoin Core v24.0.1
Features: Added option to use Auth47 for DMT auth
Features: Updated Whirlpool CLI v0.10.16
Features: Updated Explorer 3.3.0+SW, now uses node 18
01:02:07 RoninUI v2.3.0
Added new Pairing page
Display local network pairing values for Fulcrum
01:02:17 Peach v0.3
Source code is now open source
Full wallet functionality with #UTXO management (coin control)
Address checker and the option to label your addresses
Batching transactions to fund the escrow (create up to 10 sell offers by only funding the escrow once)
Batching transactions out of the escrow with other peers (Save up to 23% on fees)
Expanded to Latin America (Argentina 🇦🇷 Colombia 🇨🇴 Peru 🇵🇪 Chile 🇨🇱 Costa Rica 🇨🇷 ) and Africa (Côte d’Ivoire 🇨🇮 Congo DRC 🇨🇩 Nigeria 🇳🇬 )
01:03:46 Machankura/8333.mobi
Machankura users can now spend sats to an onchain address
01:03:57 RGB v0-10-stable
No longer in beta
“It’s been 5 month since the first alpha of RGB v0.10 - and today we a thrilled to make a final release of the RGB command-line tool and runtime library for desktop and mobile integration.”
01:04:27 Seedsigner 0.7.0-rc1 - The Not-Yet-Named 0.7.0 Release Candidate Pre-release
Reproducible builds
Now boots in 12 seconds (reduced by ~66%)
QR-based message signing. Compatible with Specter Desktop (or any QR code generator/reader app)
Full SettingsQR support. Create a variety of safe-to-print settings configurations with the SettingsQR Generator and instantly load them in as needed
More responsive controls
Faster live preview framerate
Screenshot generator. Ideal for tutorials.
Project spotlight
01:05:00 Smaug: A Rust-based CLN plugin that allows CLN’s bookkeeper plugin to track coin movements in external descriptor wallets
Enables businesses to obtain a complete picture of all bitcoin inflows and outflows.
Utilizes cln-plugin and the BDK library to track coin movements in registered wallets and report this information to the bookkeeper plugin.
01:05:24 bitaxeUltra: A fully open source hardware Bitcoin ASIC miner. Ultra is the 3rd major revision of the bitaxe that now includes the BM1366 ASIC from the S19XP
Lightning & L2+
Software Releases & Project Updates
01:07:06 LND v0.17.0
First release that includes the new musig2-based taproot channel type
As new protocol feature hasn’t yet been finalized, users must enable taproot channels with a new flag: –protocol.simple-taproot-chans. Once enabled, user MUST use the explicit channel type to request the taproot channel type (pending support by the remote peer).
01:13:08 CLN v23.08
Highlights for Users:
Several pay plugin improvements for better payment reliability
New setconfig command to change config lines dynamically without node restart
BIP-93 seed backup support
Implemented Pickhardt Payment in a new experimental renepay plugin (and corresponding renepay command) offers a much more sophisticated method of making payments (and much more experimental!).
Highlights for the Network:
Per-channel ignorefeelimits setting for getting fee disagreements unstuck
Taproot address support
Preemptive failure of incoming HTLCs if the outgoing is stuck due to high fees, to avoid channel loss.
Dual-funding has been tweaked to the latest spec, but it’s still experimental.
The new experimental-splicing option implements the new splicing draft to move funds in and out of live channels.
01:13:27 mutiny-node v0.4.15
Pending payments now show in activity
Nostr contacts now sync via Primal Cache API
WASM memory optimizations
Payments stop attempting to send once timeout has been reached
Additional currency support (@benalleng’s first PR in this repo!)
Can now pass in network to invoice decoder
01:15:23 Mutiny Wallet
Ben Carman added Fedimint support during tabconf hackathon
“This isn’t anywhere near production ready (on our end or the fedimint side), but is planned for eventual release when it’s ready.”
Nostr Contacts Integration (by pasting npub)
Zaps Feed: A live-updating stream of who your friends are zapping and who is zapping them.
Contact List: Use the Lightning Address specified in Nostr profiles to pay them privately
01:15:32 Bitbanana v0.6.6
Build changes to support F-Droid release
UI Improvements
Added full Portuguese translation
Additionally exposed language picking to Androids per app language settings (Android 13+)
01:16:40 Breez SDK Core 0.2.3
Dynamic fee selection according to the LSP specification - https://github.com/BitcoinAndLightningLayerSpecs/lsp/tree/main/LSPS2
Published npm package for Reacts Native
Published flutter package
Fix send_onchain to use private routing hints
Added optional parameters passed to receive_payment
Support Kotlin Multiplatform
Support sign_message/check_message
Added a simple API to get channel opening fees for a specific amount
01:16:50 Alby
Launched Alby Developer Portal - A portal that lets you find the components you need for your app to make building on bitcoin even faster.
Helps developers:
Get an overview of available components
Get started at your own pace
Learn which components fit together and are needed for your app
Features:
UI to create OAuth Clients
UI to create Access Tokens
UI to create Webhooks
alby-js-sdk
Add lookup invoice to nwc webln provider
Convert balance from msat
Add events system to subscribe to the automatic token refresh happening in the library via tokenRefreshed and tokenRefreshFailed events by @pavanjoshi914 in #42
Add makeInvoice function to allow creation of invoice in NostrWeblnProvider by @rolznz in #67
Add linters (prettier, eslint), add husky and precommit hooks along with custom npm scripts and serialization config for eslint and prettier by @pavanjoshi914 in #60
01:17:01 Fountain
Music Podcasts (Beta)
The tag allows the podcast host to specify the type of content contained within the RSS feed. If the medium is specified as music, Fountain labels it accordingly in search and delivers a more bespoke user experience for listening to music.
The tag allows the podcast host to specify the value recipient for a certain period of time during an episode. The splits change dynamically depending on which track is currently playing and the money listeners send gets paid directly to the artist.
Player Updates
View and manage your queue directly from the player screen. Added labels for “now playing” and “next in queue”.
For podcasts that have provided chapters, you can now see which chapter you are currently listening to and open up the panel to skip to another chapter without leaving the player screen.
Performance Upgrades
Running the app on your mobile device now consumes less data and power
Now supports BOLT-11 invoices on web so you can Boost from your browser without a Fountain account.
01:17:14 Wallet of Satoshi v2.2.7
Allow custom notes on lightning invoices
Show current BTC Fiat Value in Menu
Detect and prompt to open links in payment descriptions
01:17:26 lnbits v0.10.10 Yvette++
Optional fiat conversion in wallets
CLN rest funding source
01:17:31 Nayuta Wallet v0.2.0
Support for LNURL Pay QR code payments
01:17:36 Spark Wallet v3.1
Removed lightning wallet
01:17:41 Satimoto v0.4.4
This release adds Breez SDK as a backend provider to the Satimoto mobile application (Reduces syncing time, better battery life and improved payment handling)
Settings restructured and extended to add optional setting of battery information to improve invoice estimation and the ability to confirm a charge session has started and claim satsback.
01:17:47 eNuts v0.0.3-beta
First public beta release of eNuts (currently in its beta version)
Feedback and bug reports appreciated!
Nutstash
01:18:44 Minibits v0.0.8-alpha
Every Minibits user now gets unique wallet name and picture in the format @minibits.cash that can be used to send coins to.
New contacts feature allows you to keep your private contacts at one tap from sending some coins. You can now add your followers from your NOSTR account as your public contacts.
Still an alpha release
01:18:57 Stacker News
JIT funding and anon payments now use short lived hold invoices so your payment is settled if and only if your action succeeds, ie it’s refunded automatically if you choose to cancel it or retries don’t succeed before it expires
Lightning Prisms: You can now forward post zaps to up to 5 stackers
Toasts: Show success/error toasts when you’re doing things like bookmarking and subscribing to threads
Clearer Withdrawal Options: There’s now a tabbed interface for picking how you want to withdrawal sats
01:19:06 Zaprite
xpub support
Zaprite users can upload an xpub, whether from a ColdCard, Trezor, Ledger or other hardware or software wallet.
Integration with Unchained vaults for businesses using multisig.
Connect LND node
Users can connect an LND node or a Strike account. Improved API connectivity allows direct bitcoin settlement for Strike users.
Payment Links
Allows users to create individual products or services and generate unique URLs to embed or share.
Payment Links can be customized with an image, description and tax amount.
These URLs are linked up to our hosted, branded Checkouts, allowing users to fully customize the payment flow for their customers
01:19:14 Orange Pill App v1.6.0
New group chat for sharing news, brainstorming ideas, coordinating activities, and staying in the loop with your Bitcoin friends.
01:19:22 Emeralize is now open-source
Project spotlight
01:22:28 The Split Kit: Empower Your Projects with Lightning Network Boostagrams
The Split Kit allows you to follow the value time split specification quite easily. Just compile a list of single songs similar to what’s demonstrated here, and then modify the starting time as needed. The Split Kit will automatically produce the appropriate segments of the value time splits.
01:22:36 ZapLocker: Non-custodial lightning address server with base layer support
Allows users to receive payments (inc. zaps), to a lightning address in a self-custodial manner without needing to set up a server or LN node
Uses Nostr under the hood
01:22:44 SimLN
SimLN is a simulation tool that can be used to generate realistic payment activity on any lightning network topology. It is intentionally environment-agnostic so that it can be used across many environments - from integration tests to public signets.
This tool is intended to serve developers who are familiar with lightning network development. Useful for:
A protocol developer looking to test proposals.
An application developer load-testing your application.
A signet operator interested in a hands-off way to run an active node.
A researcher generating synthetic data for a target topology.
01:22:55 Satogram: Send messages to (most of) the lightning network!
Satograms are lightning keysend payments that include a custom message.
Think of it like spam email, but you get paid for it. When you receive a Satogram you have been paid by the sender!
Reach out to thousands of people with your own custom message of up to ~1000 characters in only a few minutes.
01:23:05 LNPlay.live: Rent a Lightning Network
Aimed at Bitcoin educators looking for a streamlined and interactive introduction to lightning nodes
Open lightning channels, make payments, manage liquidity, update channel fees, route payments, re-balancing, BOLT12 offers, and more.
The network you are renting is only using regtest Bitcoin
Nostr
Software Releases & Project Updates
01:23:46 NDK
Outbox model support
Fixed unstable relay back-off code
Defaults to blacklisting wss://brb.io
Subscription aggregation now works when multiple filters run at the same time
Subscriptions that should close when EOSEd are now closed when each individual relay EOSEs instead of waiting for all of them to EOSE
A better algorithm on when to signal a subscription’s EOSE. The margin that NDK now gives to relays to EOSE is now a function of how many of the connected relays in the relay set have EOSEd (accounting for relays that are still sending events).
v0.8.21 “The protocol is the app-store”
Adds NIP-89 (app stores need not apply)
Adds NIP-90 support (data vending machines)
Adds NIP-99 support (craigslist-like events)
NDK-Dexie-cache released: New Dexie Cache adapter for in-browser caching
NDK-Svelte-components released:
Highlights component support
UserCard and a few more user-centric components
01:25:07 Snort
Snort V2 Design
NIP-24 Encrypted secret chats (nsec login only)
NIP-13 Proof of Work (POW)
NIP-31 Alt tag spec for unknown event kinds
Render mentioned zap goals (Kind 9041)
Embed fonts in src (No more google fonts requests)
Native key storage for Android app (Nip7os interface)
nsecBunker support
01:25:16 Amethyst v0.76.0
Migrates to Encrypted Push Notifications
Improvements to the relay settings UI.
Uses the correct observer for the picture profile in the Top bar.
Adds nostr.wine and noswhere.com as two new NIP-50 relays in the default list.
Adds SeenOn relays when successfully broadcasting a note.
Upgrades the RelayPoolStatus to a Flow
Avoids race condition when updating EOSEs
Adds arm64-v8a and armeabi-v7a build target
01:25:59 Coracle v0.3.5
Add NIP-32 labeling for events
Add Explore tab which surfaces labels from your follows list
Add NIP-36 reports
Fix scrambled person list
Fix zaps bug
Fix person info relays
01:26:04 Current v0.1.3-Alajuela
Homefeed: redesigned homefeed provides more space for content.
Threads: comments finally get the implementation they deserve. The context of a comment can be displayed by dragging it downwards
Images: Posts with images are now displayed in maximum size on the homefeed. In addition, you can now zoom in and out, as well as easily save images.
Image Generation DVM: You can now generate images using AI DVMs on nostr and instantly share them on your home feed. You can remix other images you find on nostr too.
01:26:09 Lume
Update notification screen
New note content parser, faster than 50%
Add link preview
Add mention popup selection to composer
Support upload media to nostr.build (replace void.cat)
Support drag and drop upload in composer
Support nostr.com for display unfound event
Save composer state in local storage
Fully support NIP-05 (verify user’s nip-05)
Revert to Tauri v1
Add support more defaults widgets, includes: Files (NIP-94), Articles (NIP-23), Trending (use Nostr Band API)
01:26:14 Spring - The Nostr Browser v0.1.4
Wallet Connect:
Add NWC wallets (NIP-47)
Delete wallets, select as current
WebLN interface with current wallet injected into tabs
Payment permission requests
01:26:19 Amber v0.0.7
Support for get_public_key
UI for encrypt/decrypt nip04
01:26:30 Mostro v0.8.
Use Duration for send_msg
Modifies the init script to read database url from the toml file & print steps
Uses awk instead of grep in the init script, making it more robust
Latest nostr sdk
01:26:38 Primal 0.28.2 (Testflight)
Project spotlight
01:26:51 Ditto: An efficient and flexible social media server [Website / GitLab] [Announcement]
It’s Soapbox on Nostr.
Ditto pretends to be a Mastodon server while using the Nostr protocol.
You can use Mastodon apps other than Soapbox (but you need to obtain a Nostr private key first).
ActivityPub is not supported yet, but it will be. It’s part of what makes Ditto, Ditto.
Ditto is about building communities on Nostr, similar to ActivityPub.
Nostr uses private keys. There is still a lot of work to do in Soapbox to improve this experience.
It’s still a demo.
01:27:00 nostr-matrix: WIP compilation of nostr clients and supported features.
01:27:29 Favvy: The Link in Bio tool built on Nostr, where you own the data.
Assemble all your web links on Favvy
Accept Bitcoin, Lightning & Zaps - and also CashApp & Venmo
Built on Nostr, so you have complete ownership of the data. (Your followers may or may not be on Nostr)
Boosts
01:29:06 Thanks to everyone who streamed sats, and shoutout to our top boosters:
[🏆 TOP BOOSTER] @ahanniga (20K sats) “👏👏🎯”
@apemithrandir (7,777 sats) “v4v”
@wartimepsycho
(1,000 sats) “thx”
(1,000 sats) “Good rip 🍻”
@dubravko (1,000 sats) “The guests really changed the vibe and changed up the episode. It was a great change up.”
Bitcoin Optech Newsletter
01:29:33 Highlights from recent Bitcoin Optech Newsletters
Specifications for taproot assets:
Olaoluwa Osuntokun published a draft bLIP describing how to map the Taproot Asset Protocol onto the existing BOLT channel/invoice format
Building on the active proposal for simple taproot channels
LN messaging changes for PTLCs:
As the first LN implementation with experimental support for channels using P2TR and MuSig2 is expected to be released soon, Greg Sanders posted to the Lightning-Dev mailing list a summary of several different previously-discussed changes to LN messages to allow them to support sending payments with PTLCs instead of HTLCs.
Bitcoin transaction compression:
Tom Briar posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a draft specification and proposed implementation of compressed Bitcoin transactions. Smaller transactions would be more practical to relay through bandwidth constrained mediums, such as by satellite or through steganography (e.g., encoding a transaction in a bitmap image). Traditional compression algorithms take advantage of most structured data having some elements that occur more frequently than other elements. However, typical Bitcoin transactions consist largely of uniform elements—data that looks random—like public keys and hash digests.
Privacy enhanced co-signing:
Nick Farrow posts to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about how a scriptless threshold signature scheme like FROST could improve the privacy of people who use co-signing services. A typical user of a co-signing service has multiple signing keys that are stored separately for security; but, to simplify normal spending, they also allow their outputs to be spent by a combination of some of their keys plus one or more keys held by one or more service providers who only sign after authenticating the user in some way. The user can bypass the service provider if needed, but the service provider makes operations easier in most cases.
Covenant mashup using TXHASH and CSFS:
Brandon Black posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a proposal for a version of OP_TXHASH (see Newsletter #185) combined with OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK that would provide most of the features of OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV) and SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT (APO) without much additional onchain cost over those individual proposals. Although the proposal stands on its own, part of the motivation for creating it was to “clarify our thinking about [CTV and APO] individually and together, and potentially move toward consensus on a path toward enabling […] amazing ways to use bitcoin in the future”.
Fraud proofs for outdated backup state: Thomas Voegtlin posted to the Lightning-Dev mailing list an idea for a service that could be penalized if it provided a user with any version of the user’s backup state besides the most recent version.
News & Noteworthy
Bitcoin
01:39:40 CLBOSS Is Back [Announcement]
CLBOSS is once again being maintained by Vincenzo Palazzo and Ken Sedgwick
“We’re seeking assistance from the testing side of clboss”
“We’re currently in the process of preparing a new release candidate (RC) with bug fixes resulting from a cln upgrade”
“We’re open to code contributions as well. They are highly welcome and much needed.”
01:39:58 Support for Mercury Wallet to be discontinued by Mercury Layer [Announcement]
“As we move forward with our new Blinded MPC off chain layer. We will discontinuing support for Mercury Wallet.”
Lightning & L2
01:40:32 An initial project roadmap was released by Scaling Lightning; a testing toolkit for the lightning network.
01:40:41 FlashSats, a new LSP service dedicated to simplifying and streamlining the channel purchasing experience for lightning node runners announced
01:40:49 Podcasting 2.0 V4V comes to PeerTube Videos with Lightning plugin [Stacker News]
Allows viewers of video content to send Sats to video creators with a message or stream sats every 60 seconds of content.
Public beta instance available for any users or creators who would like to try it out.
01:40:55 Paid search engine Kagi now Accepts Bitcoin (Lightning) payments through OpenNode.
01:41:00 Bastien Teinturier opened a PR to the bLIPs repository proposal: Remotely control your lightning node from your favorite HSM
“Securely send administrative commands to your lightning node from an untrusted machine (laptop, mobile phone or even smart watch), by using an HSM acting as a whitelisted lightning peer (by implementing Bolt 8 entirely inside the HSM).”
Funding
01:41:15 Vulpem Ventures announces an open-source Bitcoin development grant to Burak of $25,000 for the next year.
Mining
01:41:25 Oman is planning to invest 1.1 Billion USD in #Bitcoin mining [Forbes]
01:42:06 Nodal Power raises $13 Million seed round to build renewable energy power plants at landfills [Utah Business]
Business & Finance
01:42:15 NEW: Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z-backed nonprofit acquires Qala - a startup that trains African Bitcoin and Lightning developers [BitcoinMagazine]
01:42:34 Elon Musk’s X Has Licenses in Multiple U.S. States to Process Payments, Including Crypto [Coindesk]
01:42:43 Coincorner has teamed up with Lolly to bring #Bitcoin functionality to all Lolly tills and kiosks [Announcement]
The LollyPoS platform will allow merchants to take bitcoin payments for food and drink, alongside traditional cash and card methods.
01:42:52 Bull Bitcoin expands to Costa Rica via SINPE Movil in partnership with Bitcoin Jungle [Announcement]
01:44:07 Blockchain firm Ripple has acquired Fortress Trust, which custodies funds for Swan Bitcoin
Ripple made Fortress customers hit by security incident whole as part of acquisition [The Block]. “@RyanJamesWeeks had an anonymous tip that 450 bitcoin ($11.3 million) had been stolen” in the incident.” [Tim Copeland]
Swan claims “Swan client coins are in insured cold wallets at BitGo and did not move during the reported incident at Fortress”
Hyperbitcoinization
01:45:39 Fintech bank Revolut with 15M users integrates #Bitcoin segwit addresses and on-chain withdraw and receive features [Bitcoin News]
01:45:56 Coinbase LN integration is official
El Salvador will implement Bitcoin education into every public school in 2024 [Coindesk]
Government & Political
Grayscale Lands Court Victory Over SEC In Battle For Spot Bitcoin ETF [Forbes]
Shitcoin Clownery
01:46:23 New KYC/AML Compliance Protocol Proposed by Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin [No Bullshit Bitcoin]
01:51:29 Worldcoin Meltdown: 50% Crash Caused By Mounting Data Privacy Paranoia [NEWSBTC]
Decline of 53% from its initial peak price of $2.71 on the day of the project’s launch.
Ongoing investigations by authorities in various countries around the world have dealt a heavy blow to the price of the WLD token
Reads & Learning Resources
01:51:42 Here’s a list of our top recently published reads:
Private Collaborative Custody with FROST by Nick Farrow
Thoughts on Drivechain I: Miners can do things about which we will inevitably argue whether it is actually ‘stealing’ or not by Achim Warner
Reverse Broadcasting: How open protocols will flip the way we count ears and eyeballs by Michael Rhee
How America Ended its Last Central Bank by Peter St Onge
“Debanking”: The Latest Assault on Freedom of Speech by Contact Claudio Grass on Mises
Scaling Lightning With Simple Covenants by John Law
NUCLEUS: Capital-efficient multipeer Lightning payment channels by Atomic Mr Nuclear
SLP505 MUSIG2 IN PRACTICE, APO, CTV & BITCOIN SOFT FORKS WITH BRANDON BLACK
Issue #1375: The Ethics of Money Production by Marty Bent
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!)