Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Anthony Towns and Mikhail Kudinov to discuss Newsletter #386.
News
● Building a vault using blinded co-signers (1:04:09)
● Peer feature negotiation (1:40)
Changing consensus
● Year 2106 timestamp overflow uint64 migration (1:07:47)
● Relax BIP54 timestamp restriction for 2106 soft fork (1:11:36)
● Understanding and mitigating a CTV footgun (1:16:30)
● CTV activation meeting (1:21:00)
● `OP_CHECKCONSOLIDATION` to enable cheaper consolidations (1:23:11)
● Hash-based signatures for Bitcoin's post-quantum future (20:47)
Releases and release candidates
● BTCPay Server 2.3.0 (1:28:29)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33657 (1:30:25)
● Bitcoin Core #32414 (1:33:23)
● Bitcoin Core #32545 (1:39:18)
● Bitcoin Core #33892 (1:42:13)
● Core Lightning #8784 (1:44:35)
● LND #9489 (1:45:54)
● BIPs #2051 (1:50:09)
● BOLTs #1299 (1:56:39)
● BOLTs #1305 (1:59:46)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Bastien Teinturier, Rearden Code, and Pieter Wuille to discuss Newsletter #385: 2025 Year-in-Review Special.
January
● Updated ChillDKG draft (43:08)
● Offchain DLCs (45:53)
● Compact block reconstructions (2:29:27)
February
● Erlay update (1:53:55)
● LN ephemeral anchor scripts (0:50)
● Probabilistic payments (54:45)
March
● Bitcoin Forking Guide (3:29:35)
● Private block template marketplace to prevent centralizing MEV (3:05:28)
● LN upfront and hold fees using burnable outputs (13:12)
April
● SwiftSync speedup for initial block download (2:09:35)
● DahLIAS interactive aggregate signatures (3:26:02)
Summary 2025: Quantum (58:07)
May
● Cluster mempool (1:22:11)
● Increasing or removing Bitcoin Core’s OP_RETURN policy limit (2:45:43)
June
● Calculating the selfish mining danger threshold (2:20:39)
● Fingerprinting nodes using addr messages (3:11:38)
● Garbled locks (3:19:01)
Summary 2025: Soft fork proposals (26:57)
July
● Chain code delegation (49:07)
August
● Utreexo draft BIPs (2:15:57)
● Lowering the minimum relay feerate (2:39:52)
● Peer block template sharing (2:56:01)
● Differential fuzzing of Bitcoin and LN implementations (3:16:08)
Summary 2025: Stratum v2 (2:04:49)
September
● Details about the design of Simplicity (3:23:01)
● Partitioning and eclipse attacks using BGP interception (3:13:47)
October
● Discussions about arbitrary data (3:01:15)
● Channel jamming mitigation simulation results and updates (11:05)
November
● Comparing performance of ECDSA signature validation in OpenSSL vs. libsecp256k1 (2:01:47)
● Modeling stale rates by propagation delay and mining centralization (2:22:32)
● BIP3 and the BIP process (3:31:37)
● Bitcoin Kernel C API introduced (3:35:35)
December
● Splicing (7:33)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Matt Morehouse and Salvatore Ingala to discuss Newsletter #384.
News
● Critical vulnerabilities fixed in LND 0.19.0 (0:59)
● A virtualized secure enclave for hardware signing devices (21:11)
Changes to services and client software
● Interactive transaction visualization tool (37:16)
● BlueWallet v7.2.2 released (38:20)
● Stratum v2 updates (38:42)
● Auradine announces Stratum v2 support (40:18)
● LDK Node 0.7.0 released (41:58)
● BIP-329 Python Library 1.0.0 release (43:30)
● Bitcoin Safe 1.6.0 released (44:34)
Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange
● Does a clearnet connection to my Lightning node require a TLS certificate? (45:12)
● Why do different implementations produce different DER signatures for the same private key and hash? (45:58)
● Why is the miniscript `after` value limited at 0x80000000? (49:27)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33528 (53:12)
● Bitcoin Core #33723 (54:17)
● Bitcoin Core #33993 (56:35)
● Bitcoin Core #33553 (59:54)
● Eclair #3220 (1:01:52)
● LDK #4231 (1:02:48)
● LND #10396 (1:05:40)
● BTCPay Server #7022 (1:08:26)
● Rust Bitcoin #5379 (1:09:32)
● BIPs #2050 (1:10:06)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Moonsettler and Julian to discuss Newsletter #383.
News
● Consensus bug in NBitcoin library (1:04)
Changing consensus
● LNHANCE soft fork (24:00)
● Benchmarking the varops budget (5:09)
● SLH-DSA (SPHINCS) post-quantum signature optimizations (45:29)
Releases and release candidates
● Core Lightning v25.12 (1:02:24)
● LDK 0.2 (1:03:43)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Core Lightning #8728 (1:05:14)
● Core Lightning #8702 (1:06:55)
● Core Lightning #8735 (1:07:24)
● LDK #4226 (1:11:41)
● LND #10341 (1:12:49)
● BTCPay Server #6986 (1:14:00)
● BIPs #2015 (1:16:18)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt discuss Newsletter #382.
News
● Stats on compact block reconstructions updates (0:34)
● Motion to activate BIP3 (7:26)
Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange
● Do pruned nodes store witness inscriptions? (24:27)
● Increasing probability of block hash collisions when difficulty is too high (29:33)
● What is the purpose of the initial 0x04 byte in all extended public and private keys? (33:25)
Releases and release candidates
● LND v0.20.0-beta (34:57)
● Core Lightning v25.12rc1 (35:57)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33872 (37:55)
● Bitcoin Core #33629 (42:05)
● Core Lightning #8677 (49:49)
● Core Lightning #8546 (51:28)
● Core Lightning #8682 (53:19)
● LDK #4197 (55:39)
● LDK #4234 (1:00:56)
● LDK #4148 (1:02:17)
● BDK #2027 (1:03:04)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Antoine Poinsot and ZmnSCPxj to discuss Newsletter #381.
News
● Modeling stale rates by propagation delay and mining centralization (1:03)
● Private key handover for collaborative closure (30:55)
Changes to services and client software
● Arkade launches (52:32)
● Mempool monitoring mobile application (55:25)
● Web-based policy and miniscript IDE (56:25)
● Phoenix Wallet adds taproot channels (57:45)
● Nunchuk 2.0 launches (59:19)
● LN gossip traffic analysis tool announced (1:01:49)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33745 (1:04:23)
● Core Lightning #8537 (1:09:28)
● Core Lightning #8608 (1:11:26)
● Core Lightning #8646 (1:13:34)
● Core Lightning #8569 (1:17:44)
● Core Lightning #8558 (1:22:46)
● LDK #4126 (1:24:11)
● LDK #4208 (1:26:37)
● LND #9432 (1:27:58)
● BOLTs #1284 (1:31:38)
● BOLTs #1044 (1:33:33)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by TheCharlatan to discuss Newsletter #380.
Releases and release candidates
● LND 0.20.0-beta.rc4 (1:30)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #30595 (2:56)
● Bitcoin Core #33443 (28:03)
● Core Lightning #8656 (29:42)
● Core Lightning #8671 (30:22)
● LDK #4204 (33:09)
● BIPs #2022 (34:45)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Sebastian Falbesoner, PortlandHODL, Tadge Dryja, and Antoine Poinsot to discuss Newsletter #379.
News
● Comparing performance of ECDSA signature validation in OpenSSL vs. libsecp256k1 (1:47)
Changing consensus
● Multiple discussions about restricting data (14:05)
● Post-quantum signature aggregation (1:00:05)
● Native STARK proof verification in Bitcoin Script (1:18:47)
● BIP54 implementation and test vectors (35:47)
Releases and release candidates
● Core Lightning 25.09.2 (1:30:54)
● LND 0.20.0-beta.rc3 (1:31:44)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #31645 (1:32:34)
● Core Lightning #8636 (1:40:08)
● Core Lightning #8639 (1:43:18)
● Core Lightning #8635 (1:44:31)
● Eclair #3209 (1:46:25)
● Eclair #3206 (1:46:59)
● Eclair #3210 (1:49:31)
● LDK #4140 (1:54:13)
● LDK #4168 (1:59:12)
● Rust Bitcoin #5116 (2:01:06)
● BTCPay Server #6922 (2:05:05)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt discuss Newsletter #378.
News
● CPU DoS from unconfirmed transaction processing (1:00)
Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange
● Why was -datacarriersize redefined in 2022, and why was the 2023 proposal to expand it not merged? (17:53)
● What is the smallest valid transaction that can be included in a block? (22:59)
● Why does Bitcoin Core continue to give witness data a discount even when it is used for inscriptions? (25:38)
● The ever-growing Bitcoin blockchain size? (39:17)
● I read that OP_TEMPLATEHASH is a variant of OP_CTV. How do they differ? (44:59)
Releases and release candidates
● LND 0.20.0-beta.rc1 (49:59)
● Eclair 0.13.1 (50:43)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #29640 (51:21)
● Core Lightning #8400 (54:15)
● Eclair #3173 (54:53)
● LND #10280 (56:56)
● BIPs #2006 (57:27)
● BIPs #1975 (1:00:58)
Gustavo Flores Echaiz and Mike Schmidt are joined by Abubakar Sadiq Ismail and Carla Kirk-Cohen to discuss Newsletter #377.
News
● Detecting block template feerate increases using cluster mempool (1:06)
● Channel jamming mitigation simulation results and updates (9:28)
Changes to services and client software
● BULL wallet launches (37:22)
● Sparrow 2.3.0 released (39:40)
Releases and release candidates
● Core Lightning 25.09.1 (40:47)
● Bitcoin Core 28.3 (41:18)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33157 (43:00)
● Bitcoin Core #29675 (45:56)
● Bitcoin Core #33517 (46:59)
● Eclair #2792 (49:01)
● LDK #4122 (51:01)
● LND #9868 (52:37)
● LND #10273 (53:48)
Gustavo Flores Echaiz and Mike Schmidt are joined by Francesco Madonna and supertestnet to discuss Newsletter #376.
News
● Continued discussion of block template sharing (17:30)
● B-SSL a Secure Bitcoin Signing Layer (2:54)
Releases and release candidates
● Bitcoin Core 30.0 (22:32)
● Bitcoin Core 29.2 (28:44)
● LDK 0.1.6 (29:37)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Eclair #3184 (30:59)
● Core Lightning #8597 (32:25)
● LDK #4117 (34:05)
● LDK #4077 (35:03)
● LDK #4154 (36:47)
Gustavo Flores Echaiz and Mike Schmidt are joined by Sindura Saraswathi, ZmnSCPxj, and Eugene Siegel to discuss Newsletter #375.
News
● Optimal Threshold Signatures (1:56)
● Flattening certain nested threshold signatures (14:33)
● Theoretical limitations on embedding data in the UTXO set (38:14)
Bitcoin Core PR Review Club
● Compact block harness (27:12)
Releases and release candidates
● Bitcoin Inquisition 29.1 (45:01)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33453 (47:16)
● Bitcoin Core #33504 (51:52)
● Core Lightning #8563 (53:55)
● Core Lightning #8523 (56:55)
● Core Lightning #8398 (58:22)
● LDK #4120 (59:47)
● LND #10254 (1:01:35)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Gustavo Flores Echaiz to discuss Newsletter #374.
Changing consensus
● Draft BIPs for Script Restoration (0:40)
Releases and release candidates
● Bitcoin Core 30.0rc2 (19:19)
● bdk-wallet 2.2.0 (23:39)
● LND v0.20.0-beta.rc1 (24:15)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33229 (25:03)
● Bitcoin Core #33446 (26:55)
● LDK #3838 (28:11)
● LDK #4098 (30:40)
● LDK #4106 (33:40)
● LDK #4096 (35:43)
● LND #10133 (37:24)
● BDK #2029 (39:08)
● BIPs #1911 (42:15)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Matt Morehouse, Daniela Brozzoni, and Gustavo Flores Echaiz to discuss Newsletter #373.
News
● Eclair vulnerability (18:50)
● Research into feerate settings (0:35)
Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange
● Implications of OP_RETURN changes in upcoming Bitcoin Core version 30.0? (28:27)
● If OP_RETURN relay limits are ineffective, why remove the safeguard instead of keeping it as a default discouragement? (42:12)
● What are the worst-case stress scenarios from uncapped OP_RETURNs in Bitcoin Core v30? (43:25)
● If OP_RETURN needed more room, why was the 80-byte cap removed instead of being raised to 160? (50:39)
● If arbitrary data is inevitable, does removing OP_RETURN limits shift demand toward more harmful storage methods (like UTXO-inflating addresses)? (59:48)
● If OP_RETURN uncapping doesn’t increase the UTXO set, how does it still contribute to blockchain bloat and centralization pressure? (1:00:17)
● How does uncapping OP_RETURN impact long-term fee-market quality and security budget? (1:02:11)
● Assurance blockchain will not suffer from illegal content with 100KB OP_RETURN? (1:04:34)
● What analysis shows OP_RETURN uncapping won’t harm block propagation or orphan risk? (1:05:25)
● Where does Bitcoin Core keep the XOR obfuscation keys for both block data files and level DB indexes? (1:06:10)
● How robust is 1p1c transaction relay in bitcoin core 28.0? (1:06:34)
● How can I allow getblocktemplate to include sub 1 sat/vbyte transactions? (1:10:37)
Releases and release candidates
● Bitcoin Core 30.0rc1 (1:13:00)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33333 (1:15:26)
● Bitcoin Core #28592 (1:18:36)
● Eclair #3171 (1:22:33)
● Eclair #3175 (1:26:41)
● LDK #4064 (1:29:36)
● LDK #4067 (1:31:04)
● LDK #4046 (1:32:43)
● LDK #4083 (1:35:27)
● LND #10189 (1:38:23)
● BIPs #1963 (1:41:17)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by ZmnSCPxj and Constantine Doumanidis to discuss Newsletter #372.
News
● LSP-funded redundant overpayments (16:24)
● Partitioning and eclipse attacks using BGP interception (1:02)
Changes to services and client software
● Zero-knowledge proof of reserve tool (13:49)
● Alternative submarine swap protocol proof of concept (15:12)
Releases and release candidates
● Bitcoin Core 30.0rc1 (39:14)
● BDK Chain 0.23.2 (1:16:28)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33268 (1:17:19)
● Eclair #3157 (1:18:56)
● LND #9975 (1:19:52)
● LND #9677 (1:20:21)
● LDK #4045 (1:20:41)
● LDK #4049 (1:20:32)
● BDK #1582 (1:22:18)
● BDK #2000 (1:23:13)
● BDK #2028 (1:24:17)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Jonas Nick and Bastien Teinturier to discuss Newsletter #370.
News
● Provable Cryptography Workbook (0:48)
Releases and release candidates
● Bitcoin Core 29.1 (10:48)
● Eclair v0.13.0 (11:17)
● Bitcoin Core 30.0rc1 (25:27)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #30469 (33:18)
● Eclair #3163 (33:18)
● Eclair #2308 (40:27)
● Eclair #3021 (45:18)
● Eclair #3142 (48:08)
● LDK #4053 (50:30)
● LDK #3886 (58:12)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Russell O’Connor, Olaoluwa Osuntokun, and Jeremy Rubin to discuss Newsletter #370.
Changing consensus
● Details about the design of Simplicity (37:56)
● Draft BIP for adding elliptic curve operations to tapscript (1:52)
● Draft BIP for OP_TWEAKADD (19:23)
Releases and release candidates
● Core Lightning v25.09 (59:40)
● Bitcoin Core 29.1rc2 (1:00:24)
Notable code and documentation changes
● LDK #3726 (1:00:55)
● LDK #4019 (1:02:24)
● LND #9455 (1:03:09)
● LND #10103 (1:04:00)
● HWI #795 (1:05:20)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt discuss Newsletter #368.
News
● Draft BIP for block template sharing (0:30)
● Trusted delegation of script evaluation (28:07)
Changes to services and client software
● ZEUS v0.11.3 released (33:07)
● Rust Utreexo resources (33:25)
● Peer-observer tooling and call to action (34:11)
● Bitcoin Core Kernel-based node announced (37:22)
● SimplicityHL released (38:23)
● LSP plugin for BTCPay Server (39:17)
● Proto mining hardware and software announced (39:42)
● Oracle resolution demo using CSFS (40:46)
● Relai adds taproot support (41:11)
Releases and release candidates
● LND v0.19.3-beta (43:09)
● Bitcoin Core 29.1rc1 (43:29)
● Core Lightning v25.09rc2 (43:55)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #32896 (44:33)
● Bitcoin Core #33106 (46:57)
● Core Lightning #8467 (1:02:49)
● Core Lightning #8354 (1:03:26)
● Eclair #3103 (1:04:07)
● Eclair #3134 (1:04:43)
● LDK #3897 (1:05:56)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Bruno Garcia and Liam Eagen to discuss Newsletter #369.
News
● Update on differential fuzzing of Bitcoin and LN implementations (24:56)
● Garbled locks for accountable computing contracts (0:58)
Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange
● Is it possible to recover a private key from an aggregate public key under strong assumptions? (39:45)
● Are all taproot addresses vulnerable to quantum computing? (41:24)
● Why cant we set the chainstate obfuscation key? (45:20)
● Is it possible to revoke a spending branch after a block height? (52:09)
● Configure Bitcoin Core to use onion nodes in addition to IPv4 and IPv6 nodes? (53:45)
Releases and release candidates
● Bitcoin Core 29.1rc2 (54:22)
● Core Lightning v25.09rc4 (56:45)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #31802 (57:37)
● LDK #3979 (1:04:46)
● LND #10102 (1:06:19)
● Rust Bitcoin #4907 (1:07:04)
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt discuss Newsletter #367.
Releases and release candidates
● LND v0.19.3-beta.rc1 (0:19)
● Bitcoin Core 29.1rc1 (0:46)
Notable code and documentation changes
● Bitcoin Core #33050 (2:38)
● Bitcoin Core #32473 (11:04)
● Bitcoin Core #33077 (17:57)
● Core Lightning #8389 (22:03)