Announcements

Please join us for our next Socratic Seminar. A special thank you to our sponsors BNY Mellon, CardCoins, Chaincode Labs and ZEBEDEE for food, refreshments and event space.

Mailing Lists, Meetings and Bitcoin Optech

Mailing Lists

bitcoin-dev

• A fee-bumping model

lightning-dev

• PTLCs early draft specification
• bLIPs are Open for Business!

Meetings

• Bitcoin PR Review Club
  • 23614 - Add unit test for block-relay-only eviction
  • 23443 - Erlay support signaling
  • 23724 - add systemtap’s sys/sdt.h as depends for GUIX builds with USDT tracepoints
• Bitcoin Core general developer meetings
  • December 2nd
  • December 9th
• c-lightning meetings
  • December 13th
• dlc-specs metings
  • December 7th
• Lightning Specification meeting
  • December 6th, transcript

Optech

• Newsletter #177
• Newsletter #178
• Newsletter #179

Network Data

• Binance shifting central hot wallet
• CoinJoin stats updated through November 2021
• Hashrate nearly recovered from ATH

Research

• D-LNBot
• Deep-Dive Analysis of Selfish and Stubborn Mining in Bitcoin and Ethereum]
• How do Bitcoin Users Manage Their Private Keys?
• Improving Bitcoin Transaction Propagation Efficiency through Local Clique Network
• LightSync: Ultra Light Client for PoW Blockchains
• Looking for Lacunae in Bitocin Core’s Fuzzing Efforts
• Low-Bandwidth Threshold ECDSA via Pseudorandom Correlation Generators
• Practical Asynchronous Distributed Key Generation
• Millions stolen (and reimbursed?) from Vulcan Forged
• Quantifying Blockchain Extractable Value: How dark is the forest?
• Universal Atomic Swaps: Secure Exchange of Coins Across All Blockchains
• SoK: Validating Bridges as a Scaling Solution for Blockchains
• Succinct Publicly-Certifiable Proofs (or: Can a Blockchain Verify a Designated-Verifier Proof?)

InfoSec

• A mysterious threat actor is running hundreds of malicious Tor relays
• AscendEX hacked for $78 million
• 8ight Finance treasury drained of $1.75 million
• Alpha-Rays: Key Extraction Attacks on Threshold ECDSA Implementations
• BadgerDAO Exploit Technical Post Mortem, funds flow
• BitMart hacked for $150 million
• Log4j vulnerability
• Technical Post: Understanding the Griphook Vulnerability in Bitclout, Griphook: Uncovering a Critical Vulnerability in Bitclout

Pull Requests and repo updates

Bitcoin Core

• [BIP 174] PSBT version, proprietary, and xpub fields
• PSBT: hash preimages fields
• rpc: getblockfrompeer
• validation: mempool validation and submission for packages of 1 child + parents
• wallet: Introduce SelectionResult for encapsulating a coin selection solution

lnd

• funding: always send a channel type in explicit mode
• funding: ensure a local funding w/ explicit type can’t be downgraded
• routing: fix memory corruption in MC store
• Feature Request: Allow interception of cooperative close tx broadcast

eclair

• relay onion messages
• Notify node operator on low fee bumping reserve

c-lightning

• bolt7: dns support
• onion updates to match latest spec (and test vectors!)

rust-lightning

• explicitly support counterparty setting 0 channel reserve
• lightningd: make shutdown smoother and safer, PART II

BOLTs

• gossip: deprecate Tor v2 onion services
• Drop ping sending rate-limit suggestion
• BOLT-02+09: introduce feature bit to gate new channel_type feature

New Releases

• bdk v0.14.0 - taproot support
• btc-rpc-explorer v3.3.0 - new API actions and viewer of UTXO set
• elements v0.21.0.1 - make dynafed signalling opt-out instead of opt-in
• krux - open source, airgapped bitcoin hardware signer for the M5StickV
• getAlby v1.1.0 - LNURLpay support
• lightning-jet v1.1.0 - enforceProfitability setting for circular rebalances
• lightning-terminal v0.6.1-alpha - security fixes
• LNURLvend - offline bitcoin vending machine
• SimpleBitcoinWallet v2.4.22 - taproot support
• sparrow v1.5.3 - two person coinjoins, pay to paynm via payjoin, more
• zeus v0.6.0-alpha4 - LNURL-auth and LNURL Pay support,lnd coin control and AMP support

Events and Podcasts

• Adopting Bitcoin 2021 - DEV Track Day 1, DEV Track Day 2
• Bitcoin Sydney Socratic - Optimally Reliable & Cheap Payment Flows on the Lightning Network
• LNJ052 - Lightning Address: Making Lightning User Friendly

Mining

• CleanSpark Aims to Grow Bitcoin Mining Output Over 20% Through Immersion Cooling
• Here’s a look at Bitcoin mining’s share of the semiconductor industry
• Mining pools blacklisted by China’s ‘Great Firewall’

Miscellaneous

• Announcing the New Lightning Terminal: From Pleb to Web!
• Bitcoin L2 protocols
• Bitcoin whitepaper translated into Shona, Swahili, Chewa, Hausa, Arabic, Zulu, and Lingala
• CardCoins announces Lightning support
• Channel jamming test, round 2
• Chainalysis Launches Support for Lightning Network as Layer 2 Payment Protocol Gains Popularity
• Discussion of eltoo
• Discussion of Lightning gossip protocol post taproot
• Ethereum’s New 1MB Blocksize Limit
• John Newbery stepping away from Bitcoin Core development
• JoinMarket Vs. ZeroLink And The Road To Decentralized Bitcoin Privacy Through CoinJoin
• Jeremy Rubin’s Bitcoin Advent Calendar
• Let’s Go Dutch! - Split your bill via Bitcoin Lightning
• Lightning is Getting Taprooty Scriptless-Scripty
• Lightning Node Connect: A Technical Deep Dive
• Lightning privacy: from Zero to Hero
• Liquid Taproot Signaling
• Liquid Tapscript on Script Wizard
• Liquid Testnet
• meshcollider stepping down as Bitcoin Core maintainer
• On the Formalization of MEV
• Reusable taproot addresses
• The first BDK Taproot TX: a look at the code (Part 2)
• Pinning Zoo
• Proof-of-Stake and Stablecoins: A Blockchain Centralization Dilemma
• SNARKS/STARKS for Bitcoin
• The curious case of the Bitcoin Lightning Network and the algorithmic trader