Announcements

Until our community can meet again in person, we’ll continue to share all the latest research and developments through our monthly newsletter. Please note that we have included two new sections, dlc-dev and dlcspecs, which cover the mailing list and specification repository dedicated to the development of Discrete Log Contracts.

Mailing Lists and Bitcoin Optech

Mailing Lists

bitcoin-dev

• Taproot activation proposal “Speedy Trial”, support
• March 23rd 2021 Taproot Activation Meeting Notes
• Proposal for new “disabletx” p2p message
• Delegated signatures in Bitcoin within existing rules, no fork required

lightning-dev

• Towards more reliable payment path finding via probabilistic modeling the uncertainty of channel balance
• Single Round Trustless Schnorr-based PTLC Idea + Offline LN Payment Demo

dlc-dev

• CET collision attacks
• Scalable Multi-Oracle Idea
• Multi-dimensional outcomes

Optech

• Newsletter #138
• Newsletter #139
• Newsletter #140
• Newsletter #141

Network Data

• Increase in payments-per-tx and payments-per-day
• Drop in txs when blockchain.com offline
• Bitcoin Block Time Variance: Theory vs Reality
• 59 duplicate nones in the Bitcoin blockchain
• continued UTXO dusting
• Bitfinex processes 12.5k lightning transactions in 30 days
• Testing lightning node performance

Research

• Analysis and Probing of Parallel Channels in the Lightning Network
• Generic Adaptor Signature
• ESCORT: Ethereum Smart COntRacTs Vulnerability Detection using Deep Neural Network and Transfer Learning
• Dynamic Posted-Price Mechanisms for the Blockchain Transaction-Fee Market
• Latus Incentive Scheme: Enabling Decentralization in Blockchains based on Recursive SNARKs
• FPPW: A Fair and Privacy Preserving Watchtower For Bitcoin
• Blitz: Secure Multi-Hop Payments Without Two-Phase Commits
• Speeding up Block Propagation in Blockchain Network: Uncoded and Coded Designs
• The Tight Bound for Pure Price of Anarchy in an Extended Miner’s Dilemma Game
• A Novel Framework for the Analysis of Unknown Transactions in Bitcoin: Theory, Model, and Experimental Results
• Formal Modelling and Security Analysis of Bitcoin’s Payment Protocol
• Foundations of Generalized State Channel Networks

InfoSec

• Fuzz Trophies for Bitcoin Core
• At Least 30,000 U.S. Organizations Newly Hacked Via Holes in Microsoft’s Email Software
• grin inflation bug caught
• Prime+Probe 1, JavaScript 0: Overcoming Browser-based Side-Channel Defenses
• MEV honeypot w/ poisonous ERC20
• Meerkat contract drained of $31m
• Chainlink price feed incorrect for 6 hours
• Apple notarized Electrum malware, funds flow
• Google Project Zero shut down a counterterrorism operation
• Tesla discloses vulnerability to BTCPayserver

Pull Requests and repo updates

Bitcoin Core

• External signer support - Wallet Box edition
• Add I2P support using I2P SAM
• bitcoind: Add -daemonwait option to wait for initialization
• BIP 350: Implement Bech32m and use it for v1+ segwit addresses
• wallet: Add new format string placeholders for walletnotify

HWI

• v2.0.0
• Properly handle and test sortedmulti descriptors

BIPs

• BIP8: Add minimum activation height
• BIP 8: Make threshold configurable, and reduce recommendation to 90%
• BIP47 v3/v4 draft
• BIP 370: PSBT Version 2

eclair

• Handle aggregated anchor outputs htlc txs
• Shortest paths: prevent producing loops and remove some duplicated work
• Refactor Postgres code

c-lightning

• C-Lightning v0.10.0: Neutralizing Fee Therapy
• Dual-Funding Flag Day
• Channeld: allow remote node to exceed their own HTLC count limits
• Fundchannel complete psbt not txid

lnd

• sweeper+contractcourt: deadline aware in sweeping anchors
• rpcserver+lnrpc: make Subscribe RPCs context aware
• build+lncfg: support pruned bitcoind backends
• AMP support for SendPaymentV2
• blockcache: add blockcache pkg and pass it to all backends
• lncli+lnrpc: add payment address to sendpayment
• lnwallet+channeldb: delete owed remote updates when signing

rust-lightning

• Make cltv_expiry_delta configurable and reduce the min/default some

BOLTs

• Funding Timeout Recovery proposal
• interactive-tx: Add dual-funding flow, using the interactive tx protocol (feature 28/29)

dlcspecs

• Fraud proofs
• Use no hash oracle attestation

joinmarket

• v0.8.2
• Payjoin receiver via daemon

New Releases

• immortan - minimal LN implementation
• zeus v0.5.0
• whirlpool-gui v0.10.3
• Samourai Wallet v0.99.96e
• joininbox v0.3.3
• sparrow wallet 1.3.0
• BTCPayserver v1.0.7.0
• ColdCard v4.0.0
• btc-endgame
• specter-desktop v1.3.0

Events and Podcasts

• The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Taproot Activation with Speedy Trial
• The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - HWI And Hardware Wallet Integration in Bitcoin Core
• achow101 livestreams - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
• Wasabikas 5.0 - Chris Stweart and Nadav Koken on the privacy of Lightning Network and Discrete Log Contracts
• Wasabikas 6.0 - Adam Gibson on the randomness of Bitcoin
• Wasabikas 7.0 - Istvan Seres on the privacy guarnatees of the Lightning Network
• Wasabi Research Club #22 - Discrete Log Contract Specification
• Wasabi Research Club #23 - Integrating WabiSabi
• SLP254 Dario Sneidermanis Muun Wallet: Bitcoin & Lightning All In One
• SLP257 Matt Corallo – Bitcoin Soft Fork Activation, Taproot, and Playing Chicken
• SLP260 Luke Dashjr How Bitcoin UASF Went Down, Taproot LOT=True, Speedy Trial, Small Blocks
• SLP262 - Craig Raw - Bitcoin Multi Sig With Sparrow Wallet
• Lisa Neigut - Dual Funded Channels with c-lightning
• TFTC 241 - Mining pools, Braidpool, resistance to attacks, adversarial thinking, and dev funding with Bob McElrath
• Unhashed Podcast 129 - L2 scaling in Ethereum and Bitcoin (w/ Eric Wall & Somsen)

Miscellaneous

• The widening gyre
• Bitcoin CoreDev reflections 2020-2021
• Stratum v2 update
• Optimizing Numeric Outcome DLC creation
• Fixing UASF
• A Model for Bitcoin Soft Fork Activation
• On taproot activation and consensus changes in Bitcoin
• CardCoins issues grant to hebasto (Hennadii Stepanov)
• Brink announces first round of developer grants
• Human Rights Foundation Announces $70,000 In Bitcoin Development Grants
• OKCoin issues grant to Antoine Riard
• Marathon Patent Group provides one year grant to Jonas Schnelli
• descriptor-based paper wallets
• How much would it cost to 51% attack Bitcoin?
• Bottlepay rejects coinjoined funds
• 37 of 37 multisig experiment
• Peter McCormack renews sponsorship of London BitDevs
• Open Batch Channels From Cold Storage using LND, Electrum, and Coldcard
• gasless transctions via flashbot bundles
• wash trading on uniswap