Published by Bitcoin Optech
Join Bitcoin Optech as we discuss Bitcoin and Lightning technology each week and review our newsletters. https://bitcoinops.org/
Listen on Apple Podcasts1 hr 49 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Fabian Jahr, Kruw, and Mojo to discuss Newsletter #415 . News ● Draft BIP for full aggregation of BIP340 signatures (1:32) Changes to services and client software ● Wasabi Wallet 2.8.0 released (33:11) ● Coinswap v0.2.2 released (46:08) ● Go secp256k1 library announced (1:08:38) ● ASMap dashboard announced (21:06) ● Wavelength alpha released (1:10:01) Releases and release candidates ● Core Lightning v26.06.6 (1:13:06) ● Bitcoin Inquisition 29.4 (1:16:03) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35215 (1:17:11) ● Bitcoin Core #35766 (1:21:16) ● BIPs #2075 (1:22:44) ● BIPs #2204 (1:25:46) ● Core Lightning #8935 (1:28:43) ● Core Lightning #9324 (1:33:14) ● libsecp256k1 #1765 (1:35:16) ● Rust Bitcoin #6317 (1:41:46) ● BTCPay Server #7457 (1:44:10) ● BLIPs #71 (1:46:24)
1 hr 34 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Keagan McClelland and Andrew Toth to discuss Newsletter #414 . News ● Formal verification of the Bitcoin protocol (1:11) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 30.3 (39:42) ● Bitcoin Core 29.4 (39:43) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35295 (52:43) ● Bitcoin Core #34897 (1:13:54) ● Bitcoin Core #35406 (1:16:13) ● Bitcoin Core #35380 (1:21:36) ● Bitcoin Core #35568 (1:07:36) ● Bitcoin Core #34538 (1:23:43) ● BIPs #2208 (1:25:52) ● LND #10962 (1:27:27) ● LND #10897 (1:30:12) ● BINANAs #21 (1:31:34)
47 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Sjors Provoost to discuss Newsletter #413 . News ● Using fountain codes for IBD (13:53) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 31.1 (22:52) ● LND v0.20.2-beta (28:49) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #32489 (31:11) ● Bitcoin Core #32606 (33:59) ● Bitcoin Core #34020 (0:48) ● Core Lightning #9104 (42:55) ● Eclair #3323 (45:11) ● LND #10832 (46:24)
1 hr 56 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Conduition and Jeremy Rubin to discuss Newsletter #412 . Changing consensus ● Benchmarking SLH-DSA STARK aggregation (1:05) ● Bird of Prey 2 (BoP-2) non-malleable schnorr and PQ signatures (10:21) ● Lattice-based signatures (19:41) ● Public key recovery for P2MR EC leaves (25:50) ● Aligning privacy incentives in P2MR (30:48) ● Prohibit merkle internal node preimages that encode minimal 64-byte transactions (49:38) ● Triggering EC disabling with a NUMS point spend or hashrate majority (37:36) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 31.1rc1 (1:32:43) ● Bitcoin Core 30.3rc1 (1:32:48) ● Bitcoin Core 29.4rc1 (1:32:52) ● Core Lightning v26.06.2 (1:36:01) ● LND v0.20.2-beta.rc1 (1:36:39) ● LND v0.21.1-beta (1:38:10) ● LDK v0.2.4 (1:38:57) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35266 (1:40:00) ● Bitcoin Core #35550 (1:41:10) ● Bitcoin Core #35610 (1:42:15) ● BIPs #2196 (1:43:52) ● BIPs #2165 (1:47:46) ● BIPs #2201 (1:50:13) ● LND #10900 (1:51:20) ● LND #10927 (1:52:37) ● LDK #4748 (1:54:13)
1 hr 56 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Nishant Bansal and Matthew Zipkin to discuss Newsletter #411 . News ● LND zero-timestamp gossip DoS disclosure (1:00) Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange ● Is it a bug that `OP_IF` is part of the tapscript opcodes? (34:02) ● Why would forbidding `OP_IF` in tapscript be a problem? (41:11) ● Does a softfork always succeed? (49:17) ● How to set up Bitcoin Core to mine a valid block after the BIP110 activation in August 2026? (56:44) ● Are BIP110 blocks on a branch with lower difficulty valid? (59:47) ● What is the story behind Bitcoin test networks? (1:07:41) ● Why was `-datacarriersize` redefined in 2022, and why was the 2023 proposal to expand it not merged? (1:15:35) ● Are chains of 26 unconfirmed transactions prohibited by the wallet in Bitcoin Core 31.0? (1:25:33) ● Are there changes in Bitcoin Core 29.0 that affect memory usage? (1:28:20) ● What is Bitcoin Core's release schedule? (1:30:21) Releases and release candidates ● LDK v0.1.10 (1:34:50) ● LDK v0.2.3 (1:35:31) ● BTCPay Server 2.4.0 (1:37:04) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35070 (1:39:27) ● Bitcoin Core #35182 (13:15) ● BIPs #2198 (1:46:09) ● LDK #4713 (1:51:17) ● LDK #4684 (1:53:47)
1 hr 19 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by rkrux, Roland Bewick, and Steven Roose to discuss Newsletter #410 . News ● Discussion of removing RBF signaling from wallet transactions (0:57) Changes to services and client software ● Sparrow Wallet 2.5.0 adds silent payments receiving (59:55) ● Bark live on Bitcoin mainnet (29:46) ● Arké Ark wallet announced (32:18) ● Noah Ark wallet announced (31:52) ● Alby Hub v1.23.0 released (15:00) ● JoinMarket NG 0.32.0 released (1:01:02) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35221 (1:02:13) ● Bitcoin Core #35254 (1:06:59) ● Bitcoin Core #35498 (1:09:26) ● Eclair #3318 (1:11:06) ● LND #10789 (1:13:05) ● Rust Bitcoin #6321 (1:14:09) ● LDK #4685 (1:16:14)
58 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Vasil Dimov to discuss Newsletter #409 . News ● Draft BIP for testnet5 (0:31) Releases and release candidates ● LND 0.21.0-beta (17:25) ● Core Lightning 26.06.1 (20:19) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35410 (21:28) ● Bitcoin Core #34779 (38:00) ● Bitcoin Core #32150 (41:36) ● LDK #4647 (45:14) ● BTCPay Server #7218 (51:34) ● BIPs #2186 (53:07)
1 hr 39 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Pyth and Ademan to discuss Newsletter #408 . News ● A post-quantum path for BIP324 (37:15) ● Discussion of QR signing payloads for miniscript wallets (1:27) Changing consensus ● CTV-only vault proof of concept (13:08) ● Post-quantum Lightning discussion (43:41) ● Quantum attack game theory (47:24) ● BIP54 64-byte transactions and potential legitimate uses (49:15) Releases and release candidates ● Core Lightning 26.06 (1:11:15) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35269 (1:15:42) ● Bitcoin Core #34644 (1:20:45) ● Bitcoin Core #34198 (1:22:21) ● LND #10813 (1:26:32) ● Rust Bitcoin #6250 (1:28:05) ● BOLTs #1338 (1:36:06) ● BOLTs #1326 (1:37:23)
52 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Chandra Pratap to discuss Newsletter #407 . News ● Core Lightning assertion DoS disclosure (0:47) ● Bitcoin Core developer meeting transcripts (14:34) Releases and release candidates ● Eclair v0.14.0 (20:30) ● Core Lightning 26.06rc2 (23:01) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #33966 (24:14) ● Bitcoin Core #34917 (28:04) ● Bitcoin Core #35017 (30:52) ● BIPs #1944 (35:25) ● BIPs #2108 (36:14) ● Eclair #3192 (39:28) ● LDK #4584 (40:28) ● LDK #4628 (41:27) ● LND #10552 (43:35) ● LND #10820 (48:52)
1 hr 8 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Oliver Gugger and 0xB10C to discuss Newsletter #406 . News ● Significant updates to BIP322 Generic Signed Message Format (1:17) ● TCP hole punching for Bitcoin nodes behind NATs (17:39) Changes to services and client software ● Ibis Wallet announced (40:15) ● LDK Server announced (41:10) ● Mempool.space v3.3.0 released (42:06) ● peer-observer P2P monitoring tooling (32:28) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #29136 (43:27) ● Bitcoin Core #34893 (47:24) ● Bitcoin Core #34860 (48:20) ● Bitcoin Core #31298 (53:52) ● Bitcoin Core #28802 (57:04) ● Eclair #3298 (58:52) ● LDK #4575 (1:02:08) ● LND #10814 (1:03:13) ● Rust Bitcoin #6191 (1:04:35) ● BLIPs #42 (1:06:20)
1 hr 5 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Fabian Jahr to discuss Newsletter #405 . News ● Bitcoin Core script interpreter remote crash disclosure (22:00) ● BIP proposal for UTXO set sharing over P2P network (0:42) Releases and release candidates ● Core Lightning 26.06rc1 (34:58) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #35209 (36:44) ● BIPs #2116 (38:20) ● BIPs #2141 (44:13) ● Core Lightning #9116 (48:35) ● Core Lightning #9110 (50:27) ● LDK #4598 (52:10) ● LDK #4528 (53:30) ● LND #10612 (54:37) ● BTCPay Server #7354 (57:12) ● BDK #2195 (58:10) ● Bitcoin Inquisition #100 (1:00:00) ● BINANAs #20 (1:02:42)
1 hr 8 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Daniela Brozzoni, Naiyoma, and Thomas Voegtlin to discuss Newsletter #404 . News ● Possible solutions to node fingerprinting (1:14) ● Public fraud proof for just-in-time channels (19:21) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #33796 (37:11) ● Bitcoin Core #21283 (39:30) ● BIPs #2150 (45:30) ● Eclair #3144 (52:30) ● Eclair #2887 (54:00) ● LDK #4592 (55:27) ● LND #9153 (56:52) ● Rust Bitcoin #5835 (58:02) ● BOLTs #995 (58:56) ● BOLTs #1228 (1:01:40) ● BOLTs #1327 (1:03:28)
1 hr 12 min
Gustavo Flores Echaiz and Brandon Black are joined by Olaoluwa Osuntokun to discuss Newsletter #403 . News ● Binary fuse filters as an alternative to BIP158's GCS (19:05) Changing consensus ● Post-quantum HD wallets with fallback SPHINCS keys (31:07) ● Discussion of a post-quantum output type (34:42) ● Proposal to embed post-quantum keys in tapscript without consensus changes (38:03) ● BIP54 demonstration of slow blocks on signet (43:28) ● Post-quantum BIP86 recovery using zk-STARK proofs of BIP32 seeds (1:05) Releases and release candidates ● Core Lightning 26.04.1 (48:16) ● BTCPay Server 2.3.8 (50:15) ● BTCPay Server 2.3.9 (51:52) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #33671 (52:39) ● Bitcoin Core #34885 (58:01) ● Bitcoin Core #33920 (59:57) ● Bitcoin Core #34911 (1:02:00) ● BIPs #1548 (1:04:47) ● HWI #831 (1:08:17) ● BDK #2188 (1:09:11) ● BDK #2115 (1:10:14)
1 hr 19 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Gustavo Flores Echaiz are joined by Toby Sharp to discuss Newsletter #402 . News ● Hornet Node's declarative executable specification of Bitcoin consensus rules (1:02) ● Onion message jamming in the Lightning Network (23:22) Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange ● Why did BIP342 replace CHECKMULTISIG with a new opcode, instead of just removing FindAndDelete from it? (40:58) ● Does SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT commit to the tapleaf hash or the full taproot merkle path? (43:28) ● What does the BIP86 tweak guarantee in a MuSig2 Lightning channel, beyond address format? (45:23) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 31.0 (47:10) ● Core Lightning 26.04 (54:26) ● LND 0.21.0-beta.rc1 (56:35) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #33477 (57:55) ● Bitcoin Core #35006 (1:02:21) ● BIPs #1895 (1:04:31) ● BIPs #2142 (1:12:47) ● LDK #4555 (1:14:28) ● LND #10713 (1:16:23) ● LND #10754 (1:18:14)
1 hr 12 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Remix7531 and Luis Schwab to discuss Newsletter #401 . News ● Discussion of using nested MuSig2 in the Lightning Network (34:05) ● Formal verification of secp256k1 modular scalar multiplication (01:10) Changes to services and client software ● Coldcard 6.5.0 adds MuSig2 and miniscript (40:56) ● Frigate 1.4.0 released (41:46) ● Bitcoin Backbone updates (47:10) ● Utreexod 0.5 released (16:18) ● Floresta 0.9.0 released (19:41) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 31.0rc4 (48:01) ● Core Lightning 26.04rc3 (49:00) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #34401 (50:01) ● Bitcoin Core #35032 (51:51) ● Core Lightning #9021 (55:33) ● Core Lightning #9046 (56:53) ● LDK #4515 (58:25) ● LDK #4558 (59:51) ● LND #9985 (1:01:53) ● BTCPay Server #7250 (1:04:07) ● BIPs #2089 (1:07:28)
55 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Julian Moik to discuss Newsletter #400 . Bitcoin Core PR Review Club ● Testing Bitcoin Core 31.0 Release Candidates (29:00) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #33908 (31:56) ● Eclair #3283 (37:06) ● LDK #4529 (38:12) ● LDK #4494 (39:55) ● LND #10666 (45:31) ● BIPs #2099 (46:40) ● BIPs #2118 (1:15) ● BIPs #2134 (51:08)
1 hr 42 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Armin Sabouri, Pyth, Conduition, and Jonas Nick to discuss Newsletter #399 . News ● Wallet fingerprinting risks for payjoin privacy (44:15) ● Draft BIP for a wallet backup metadata format (1:04:26) Changing consensus ● Compact Isogeny PQC can replace HD wallets, key-tweaking, silent payments (24:23) ● Varops budget and tapscript leaf 0xc2 (aka Script Restoration) are BIPs 440 and 441 (1:13:24) ● SHRIMPS: 2.5 KB post-quantum signatures across multiple stateful devices (02:02) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 31.0rc2 (1:22:07) ● Core Lightning 26.04rc2 (1:23:32) ● BTCPay Server 2.3.7 (1:24:04) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #32297 (1:26:29) ● Bitcoin Core #34379 (1:28:54) ● Eclair #3269 (1:30:37) ● LDK #4486 (1:32:59) ● LDK #4428 (1:35:00) ● LND #9982 (1:37:13) ● LND #10063 (1:39:00)
51 min
Mike Schmidt and Gustavo Flores Echaiz are joined by Dusty Daemon to discuss Newsletter #398 . Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange ● What is meant by Bitcoin doesn't use encryption? (28:44) ● When and why did Bitcoin Script shift to a commit–reveal structure? (30:26) ● Does P2TR-MS (Taproot M-of-N multisig) leak public keys? (31:50) ● Does OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK intentionally allow cross-UTXO signature reuse? (33:24) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 28.4 (35:05) ● Core Lightning 26.04rc1 (36:19) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #33259 (37:51) ● Bitcoin Core #33414 (39:49) ● Bitcoin Core #34846 (41:38) ● Core Lightning #8450 (13:39) ● Core Lightning #8856 (22:08) ● Eclair #3247 (44:21) ● LDK #4472 (25:00) ● LND #10602 (47:25) ● LND #10481 (49:38) ● BOLTs #1160 (0:51)
1 hr 29 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Matt Corallo, Gregory Sanders, and Sebastian van Staa to discuss Newsletter #397 . Changes to services and client software ● Cake Wallet adds Lightning support (1:06:09) ● Sparrow 2.4.0 and 2.4.2 released (1:13:15) ● Blockstream Jade adds Lightning via Liquid (1:15:33) ● Lightning Labs releases agent tools (14:49) ● Tether launches MiningOS (1:17:38) ● FIBRE network relaunched (1:35) ● TUI for Bitcoin Core released (1:19:34) Releases and release candidates ● Bitcoin Core 31.0rc1 (28:24) ● BTCPay Server 2.3.6 (1:20:55) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #31560 (1:21:55) ● Bitcoin Core #31774 (1:23:35) ● Core Lightning #8817 (1:25:12) ● Eclair #3265 (1:27:41) ● LDK #4427 (22:36) ● LDK #4484 (23:45) ● BIPs #1974 (49:52)
49 min
Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Jonathan Harvey-Buschel to discuss Newsletter #396 . News ● Collision-resistant hash function for Bitcoin Script (0:30) ● Continued discussion of Gossip Observer traffic analysis tool (8:58) Releases and release candidates ● BDK wallet 3.0.0-rc.1 (28:04) Notable code and documentation changes ● Bitcoin Core #26988 (30:39) ● Bitcoin Core #34692 (32:22) ● LDK #4304 (33:21) ● LDK #4416 (35:41) ● LND #10089 (38:01) ● Libsecp256k1 #1777 (39:46) ● BIPs #2047 (42:39) ● BOLTs #1316 (46:42) ● BOLTs #1312 (47:26)