Damus
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Bitcoin Optech
@Bitcoin Optech

We provide weekly newsletters, workshops, case studies, and research for the #Bitcoin community.

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Recent Notes

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Bitcoin Optech newsletter #385: 2025 Year-in-Review Special is here:

- notes Bitcoin developments during each month of 2025
- feature: Vulnerability disclosures
- feature: Quantum
- feature: Soft fork proposals
- feature: Stratum v2
- feature: Major releases of popular infrastructure projects
- feature: Optech
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/19/

In 2025, Optech summarized more than a dozen vulnerability disclosures...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/19/#vulns

With the increased attention on the potential for a future quantum computer to weaken or break the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm (ECDL) hardness assumption that Bitcoin relies on to prove the ownership of coins, several conversations and proposals were put forward throughout the year to discuss and mitigate the impact of such a development.
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/19/#quantum

This year saw a bevy of discussions around soft fork proposals, ranging from the tightly scoped and minimally impactful, to the broadly scoped and powerful…
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/19/#softforks

Stratum v2 is a mining protocol designed to replace the original Stratum protocol used between miners and mining pools. Throughout 2025, Bitcoin Core received several updates to better support Stratum v2 implementations....
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/19/#stratumv2

Optech covered major releases of popular infrastructure projects throughout the year...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/19/#releases

In Optech’s eighth year, we published:

- 50 newsletters
- over 80,000 words, a 225pg book equivalent
- over 60hrs of podcasts, with 500,000 words of transcripts w/75 guests
- 150+ non-English translations
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/19/#optech

A special thank you
After contributing as the primary author for 376 consecutive Bitcoin Optech newsletters, Dave Harding stepped back from contributing regularly this year. We cannot thank Harding enough for anchoring the newsletter for eight years and all of the Bitcoin education, elucidation, and understanding he brought the community. We are eternally grateful and wish him all the best.

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this special newsletter on Riverside.fm Tuesday at 17:30 UTC. Join us to discuss or ask questions!
https://riverside.fm/studio/bitcoin-optech
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Matt Morehouse and Salvatore Ingala joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #384:

- Vulnerabilities fixed in LND 0.19.0
- A virtualized secure enclave for hardware signing devices
- 7 updates to services and client software
- 3 questions from the Bitcoin Stack Exchange
- And More

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/12/16/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/ISFK9esZAmFyJFGGdafW

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2nvIdmLhoJRWKNQkynBVG8

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-384-recap/id1674626983?i=1000741577702
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Bitcoin Optech newsletter #384 is here:

- discloses vulnerabilities in LND
- describes a project for running a virtual machine in an embedded secure element
- summarizes changes to services/client software
- summarizes popular Q&A from Stack Exchange
- Optech Newsletter #384 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/12/

Matt Morehouse posted to Delving Bitcoin about critical vulnerabilities fixed in LND 0.19.0...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/12/#critical-vulnerabilities-fixed-in-lnd-0-19-0

Salvatoshi posted to Delving Bitcoin about Vanadium, a virtualized secure enclave for hardware signing devices...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/12/#a-virtualized-secure-enclave-for-hardware-signing-devices

Changes to services and client software:
- Interactive transaction visualization tool
- BlueWallet v7.2.2 released
- Stratum v2 updates
- Auradine announces Stratum v2 support
- LDK Node 0.7.0 released
- BIP-329 Python Library 1.0.0 release
- Bitcoin Safe 1.6.0 released
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/12/#changes-to-services-and-client-software

Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange:
- Does a clearnet connection to my Lightning node require a TLS certificate?
- Why do different implementations produce different DER signatures for the same private key and hash?
- Why is the miniscript after value limited at 0x80000000?
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/12/#selected-qa-from-bitcoin-stack-exchange

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter on http://Riverside.fm Tuesday at 17:30 UTC. Join us to discuss or ask questions!
https://riverside.fm/studio/bitcoin-optech
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Moonsettler and Julian joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #383:

- A consensus bug in the NBitcoin library found with differential fuzzing
- LNHANCE soft fork proposal updates
- Benchmarking Bitcoin Script under the proposed varops budget
- Optimizations to SLH-DSA (SPHINCS) post-quantum signatures
- And More

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/12/09/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/hWoSXyZivt2VIK3sD2m5

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7xoG5U9JOs579CkQhc1G58

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-383-recap/id1674626983?i=1000740473439
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Bitcoin Optech newsletter #383 is here:

- describes a fixed vulnerability affecting the NBitcoin library
- summarizes the LNHANCE soft fork proposal
- relays a call to action to benchmark Bitcoin script execution under GSR's varops budget
- highlights discussion of optimizations to SLH-DSA (SPHINCS) post-quantum signatures
- Optech Newsletter #383 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/05/

Bruno Garcia posted to Delving Bitcoin about a theoretical consensus failure in NBitcoin that could occur when using OP_NIP...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/05/#consensus-bug-in-nbitcoin-library

Moonsettler proposes a soft fork for LNHANCE now that all four of its constituent opcodes have updated BIPs and reference implementations...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/05/#lnhance-soft-fork

Julian posted a call to action to benchmark Bitcoin script execution under the varops budget...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/05/#benchmarking-the-varops-budget

Continuing the discussions around hardening Bitcoin against quantum computing, conduition presented his work on optimizing the SPHINCS signing algorithm...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/12/05/#slh-dsa-sphincs-post-quantum-signature-optimizations

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter on Riverside.fm Tuesday at 17:30 UTC. Join us to discuss or ask questions!
https://riverside.fm/studio/bitcoin-optech
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Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt discuss Newsletter #382:

- Updated stats on compact block reconstructions
- A motion to activate BIP3 and replace the current BIP process
- 3 questions from the Bitcoin Stack Exchange
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/12/02/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/93Jhx6LCQCiZDKQYppJ8

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3RlXvoyRoZW5Rw1u3GcsIM

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-382-recap/id1674626983?i=1000739533949
Bitcoin Optech profile picture
Bitcoin Optech newsletter #382 is here:

- provides an update on compact block reconstruction discussions
- relays a call to activate BIP3
- summarizes popular Q&A from Stack Exchange
- Optech Newsletter #382 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/28/

0xB10C posted an update to Delving Bitcoin about his statistics around compact block reconstruction...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/28/#stats-on-compact-block-reconstructions-updates

Murch posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a formal motion to activate BIP3...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/28/#motion-to-activate-bip3

Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange:
- Do pruned nodes store witness inscriptions?
- Increasing probability of block hash collisions when difficulty is too high
- What is the purpose of the initial 0x04 byte in all extended public and private keys?
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/28/#selected-qa-from-bitcoin-stack-exchange

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter on Riverside.fm Tuesday at 17:30 UTC. Join us to discuss or ask questions!
https://riverside.fm/studio/bitcoin-optech
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Antoine Poinsot and ZmnSCPxj joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #381:

- Modeling stale rates by propagation delay and mining centralization
- Private key handover for collaborative closure
- Updates to services and client software
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/11/25/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/3zDWx0jj8JOTj9ukAoC6

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0BsoRU9mZZiLLlDYFtLo0W

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-381-recap/id1674626983?i=1000738423632
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Bitcoin Optech newsletter #381 is here:

- looks at an analysis of how block propagation times may affect miner revenue
- describes a new approach for resolving protocols where multiple parties share funds
- summarizes changes to services/client software
- Optech Newsletter #381 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/21/

Antoine Poinsot posted to Delving Bitcoin about modeling stale block rates and how block propagation time affects a miner’s revenue as a function of its hashrate...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/21/#modeling-stale-rates-by-propagation-delay-and-mining-centralization

ZmnSCPxj posted to Delving Bitcoin about private key handover, an optimization that protocols can implement when funds, previously owned by two parties, need to be refunded to a single entity...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/21/#private-key-handover-for-collaborative-closure

Changes to services and client software:
- Arkade launches
- Mempool monitoring mobile application
- Web-based policy and miniscript IDE
- Phoenix Wallet adds taproot channels
- Nunchuk 2.0 launches
- LN gossip traffic analysis tool announced
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/11/21/#changes-to-services-and-client-software

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter on Riverside.fm Tuesday at 16:30 UTC. Join us to discuss or ask questions!
https://riverside.fm/studio/bitcoin-optech