Announcements

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

If you can’t make it to the main event please join us at PUBKEY around 9:30PM.

Please note the addition of a new section, Delving Bitcoin. This forum has proven itself as a watering hole for high quality content and meaningful discussions.

Mailing Lists, Meetings and Bitcoin Optech

Mailing Lists

bitcoin-dev

• The Pinning & Replacement Problem Set
• Cold channels and PathCoin redux
• Future of the bitcoin-dev mailing list
• A proposal for a “PSBT for descriptors” format
• HTLC output aggregation as a mitigation for tx recycling, jamming, and on-chain efficiency (covenants)

lightning-dev

• Proposal: Bundled payments
• Lightning Address in a Bolt 12 world
• Liquidity Ads: Updated Spec Posted, please review
• Mailing List Future

Delving Bitcoin

• Clustermempool definitions & theory
• Cluster Mempool RBF Thoughts
• Segwit Ephemeral Anchors
• Linearization post-processing (O(n^2) fancy chunking
• Merging incomparable linearizations
• Off Chain DLC Ticketing Systems, original post, dlc-dev
• Post-clustermempool package RBF: per-chunk processing
• Timewarp, Miners Harvesting and Vaults

Meetings

• Bitcoin PR Review Club
  • Testing Bitcoin Core 26.0 Release Candidates
  • #28368 Fee Estimator updates from Validation Interface/CScheduler thread
  • #28690 Introduce internal kernel library
• Bitcoin Core general developer meetings
  • November 2
  • November 9
  • November 16
• Lightning Specification meeting
  • November 6
  • November 20

Optech

• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #278
• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #277
• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #276
• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #275
• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #278 Recap Podcast
• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #277 Recap Podcast
• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #276 Recap Podcast
• Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #275 Recap Podcast

Network Data

• AntPool mines 83.7 BTC transaction fee, claimed by hack victim
• ANYONECANPAY - ALL usage increasing
• Bitcoin outstrips Ethereum in daily transaction fees for first time since 2020
• BRC-20 “Bear” token driving congestion
• BRC-20 November fee data
• First mainnet transaction having a Blake3 hashlock implemented in Bitcoin script (BitVM opcode)
• Increase in stale blocks
• More than 70% of all Bitcoin has not moved in over a year
• Six OFAC-sanctioned transactions missing, context
• Wallet of Satoshi on pace to process over 1.1 million Lighting payments in November

CVEs and Research

Research

• BitStream: Decentralized File Hosting Incentivised via Bitcoin Payments
• CREATE2 used to bypass Ethereum wallet security alerts, $60m stolen in 6 months)
• Durabit - A Bitcoin-native Incentive Mechanism for Data Distribution
• Heuristics for Detecting CoinJoin Transactions on the Bitcoin Blockchain
• M&M’S: Mix and Match Attacks on Schnorr-type Blind Signatures with Repetition
• On the (Not So) Surprising Impact of Multi-Path Payments on Performance and Privacy in the Lightning Network

InfoSec

• Armed Bitcoin Robberies Surge In Sweden Due to Open Data on Citizens
• BitcoinJS flag leaves $1B in cryptocurrency exposed
• dYdX insurance fund drained of 9m in price manipulation attack
• Fraudsters make $50,000 a day by spoofing crypto researchers
• KANDYKORN malware targeting cryptocurrency engineers
• KeyBleed: more low-entropy wallet attacks
• Kronos Research loses $26m
• Kyberswap drained of over $48m
• MEV bot drianed of $2m
• Onyx Protocol loses $2.1m in rounding-error exploit
• Poloniex hacked for $126m
• Postmortem of Monero CCS Hack: A Transaction Graph Analysis
• Raft depegs in infinite mint exploit
• Researchers extract RSA keys from SSH server signing errors
• Stealing the Bitlocker key from a TPM

Pull Requests and repo updates

Bitcoin Core

• Improve peformance of CTransaction::HasWitness (28107 follow-up)
• refactor: P2P transport without serialize version and type
• Change petertodd seeds to petertodd.net
• p2p: do not make automatic outbound connections to addnode peers
• multiprocess compatibility updates
• MiniMiner changes for package linearization
• mempool: Persist with XOR
• validation: return more helpful results for reconsiderable fee failures and skipped transactions
• net: improve max-connection limits code
• Do the SOCKS5 handshake reliably
• wallet: prevent bugs from invalid transaction heights with asserts, comments, and refactoring
• refactors for subpackage evaluation
• Fee estimation: extend bucket ranges consistently
• net: Sanity check private keys received from SAM proxy
• assumeutxo, blockstorage: Prevent core dump on invalid hash

BDK

• esplora: fix incorrect gap limit check in blocking client
• Add Wallet::list_output method
• fix(chain): filter coinbase tx not in best chain
• fix(bdk): Check if we’re using the correct internal key before signing
• fix(electrum): fixed chain sync issue
• Further improve unconfirmed tx conflict resolution

HWI

• improve error message when parentheses cannot be found in descriptor

rust-bitcoin

• add conversions from TXIDs to merkle nodes
• Implement LowerHex and UpperHex for CompactTarget
• Fix InputWeightPrediction::P2WPKH_MAX constant DER sig length
• Add params method to Network
• add input weight predictions for p2pkh outputs
• fix: FeeRate::checked_mul_by_weight should scale output down by 1000
• Use network when calculating difficulty

libsecp

• Signed-digit based ecmult_const algorithm

Core Lightning

• Fix getemergency segfault
• Clnrest notifications remove msat
• splice: Reestablish when commit or sig sends fail
• lightningd: fix up deprecated rest-port, rest-protocol, rest-host and rest-certs option if we would otherwise fail.
• msggen: Add missing methods to grpc and Rust interface
• splice: fix WIRE_HSMD_SIGN_SPLICE_TX capability check
• Add next_funding_txid awareness for dual-fund opens
• lightningd: wumbo is now the default, setting has no effect.
• Update fee hysteresis
• Fix two splicing/vls omissions
• Add data field to RpcError
• Anchors multi utxo
• Implement registering and sending custom notifications to lightningd
• splice: unwrap the old_secret during tx candidates
• Extend the capability of decode RPC to decrypt the contents of emergency.recover file.
• lightningd: use CPFP on peer’s commitment tx if we can’t broadcast our own

eclair

• Add hints when features check fail
• Add support for sciddir_or_pubkey
• Don’t rebroadcast channel updates from update_fail_htlc
• Disable channel when closing
• Remove reserve check if splice contribution is positive
• Avoid unusable channels after a large splice
• Abort interactive-tx during funding
• Fix tx_signatures ordering for splices
• Ignore duplicate dual-funding signatures
• Use local dust limit in local commit fee computation
• Allow using outgoing channel id for onion messages

LDK

• Taproot signer variant
• Don’t send init closing_signed too early after final HTLC removal
• Add Splicing (and Quiescence) wire message definitions
• Drop non-anchor channel fee upper bound limit entirely
• Add some public utilities to lightning_invoice
• Explicitly reject routes that double-back
• Added temporary_channel_id to create_channel

lnd

• peer: send reestablish, shutdown messages before starting writeHandler
• peer/test: fix race in TestHandleNewPendingChannel
• contractcourt: log amount if incoming htlc times out
• contractcourt: stop lnd when received witness is empty

New Releases

• BitEscrow, context
• Block-dn
• Core Lightning v23.11
• Zeus v0.8.0

Events and Podcasts

• Bitcoin Explained Episode 85: Bitcoin Core 26.0 (And F2Pool’s OFAC Compliant Mining Policy)
• BR054 - Cashu, Mutiny, ChatBTC, BitVM, Smart Vaults, lnbits + MORE ft. Carman, Calle & Rijndael
• BR055 - Sparrow, SATSLINK, Vulnerability Hell (RPI, ESP32,26₿ gone)+MORE, Craig Raw, Odell, Rijndael
• Lugano’s Plan B
• SLP528 - Bitcoin Mining Decentralisation with Ocean - Bitcoin Mechanic
• TLS125 - Christian Decker on Blockstream Greenlight, Custody on Lightning, and More

Mining

• Bhutan Built A Bitcoin Mine On The Site Of Its Failed ‘Education City’
• Braiins Pool transitioning to FPPS
• New mining pool–DEMAND–will use Stratumv2
• Hot Slice - digital boiler powered by Bitcoin miners
• Meet the MDK Hashboard
• Nigerian Bitcoin Miner, Trojan Mining, Launch 500KW Hydro Mining Site
• Ocean announces itself as rebranded Eligius, will use Stratumv2, running Knots

Miscellaneous

• Apple Deactivates Zeus Developer Account Following Antitrust Lawsuit by Cash App & Venmo Users
• Before They Were Cool: Covenants in Production on Liquid
• Bitcoin Core’s Development Priorities in 2023
• Bitcoin Rollup research news aggregator
• BitVM - Primer, SHA256 function
• BBQr
• Deep dive into BitVM -Computing paradigm to express Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts-
• Exploring Bitcoin Miniscript with Liana and the BitBox02
• Lightning’s Future — A New Era of Interoperability with LSP Specs
• Lightning Terminal adds inbound liquidity reports
• Opcodes Explained - encyclopedia of all current opcodes
• Payjoin for a Better Bitcoin Future
• Spiral grants - Will Clark, Ruben Somsen, WalletScrutiny, ZeroSync, and VLSProject
• Spoofing wallet fingerprints
• Stakwork 6.5MM bounty claimed by Steven Roose for BitVM script interpreter
• The Story Behind the Alternative Genesis Block of Bitcoin
• Timeout Trees: A Solution To Scaling Lightning Network LSPs
• The Stable is the Aesthetic
• They Cracked the Code to a Locked USB Drive Worth $235 Million in Bitcoin. Then It Got Weird
• This Month in Bitcoin Privacy
• Tor Project removes relays because of for-profit, risky activity
• Treasury Sanctions Mixer Used by the DPRK to Launder Stolen Virtual Currency
• Wallet of Satoshi stops service US customers
• Why mempool.space block templates are not matching production blocks