schmidty

bitcoin

bitdevs

Bitcoin Core From the Inside: Jon Atack - Knut Svanholm

Scoresby

> absent saints managing them

Aspiring saint here.

The good news is that you can structure the non profit to prevent against not only external influence but also internal influence. 

See: https://x.com/bitschmidty/status/1967233629618065709

Today we’re publishing Brink's 2025 Engineering Impact Report covering the work of the eight Bitcoin Core engineers we funded last year and why we think this work is important.

https://brink.dev/blog/2026/03/26/engineering-impact-report-2025/

We highlight the broader categories of work that Brink engineers performed in 2025 including:

* Code Review
* Testing and Bug Fixes
* Fuzzamoto
* The First Independent Security Audit of Bitcoin Core
* Release Management
* Build System
* Libsecp256k1
* Bitcoin Kernel
* Building on Bitcoin's Existing Capabilities

We’ve included a selection of highlighted contributions for each engineer we fund:

* Marco De Leon
* Sebastian Falbesoner
* Michael Ford
* Niklas Gögge
* Fabian Jahr
* Eugene Siegel
* Hennadii Stepanov
* Stéphan Vuylsteke

The full report includes more details on the projects, PRs, and accomplishments of each Brink engineer in 2025 and why we think this work is important and impactful to Bitcoin.

https://brink.dev/assets/files/brink-engineering-report-2025.pdf

For those wanting an even deeper look, we have compiled companion reports for each engineer:

* A markdown file explaining all authored PRs
* A CSV containing each authored PR
* A CSV linking to each PR reviewed

None of this work would be possible without the generosity of Bitcoiners who share our mission of strengthening Bitcoin by ensuring that Bitcoin's codebase continues to be maintained, tested, reviewed, and improved in a “Move slow, fix things” fashion. Thank you.

Brink's 2025 Engineering Impact Report

Matt Corallo, Gregory Sanders, and Sebastian van Staa joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #397:

- Changes to services and client software including items about FIBRE, L402, and others
- The Bitcoin Core 31.0rc1 testing guide
- OP_TEMPLATEHASH and Taproot-native (Re)bindable Transactions
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/03/24/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/kr8hTL0nldH8CQ7SCt5v

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Spre9stjgP0iiSjZPrNB7

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-397-recap/id1674626983?i=1000757113427

BlueMatt, instagibbs, svanstaa - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #397 Recap Podcast

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #397 is here:

- summarizes changes to services/client software including Cake, Sparrow, FIBRE, and more
- Bitcoin Core 31.0rc1
- Optech Newsletter #397 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/20/

Changes to services and client software:

- Cake Wallet adds Lightning support
- Sparrow 2.4.0 and 2.4.2 released
- Blockstream Jade adds Lightning via Liquid
- Lightning Labs releases agent tools
- Tether launches MiningOS
- FIBRE network relaunched
- TUI for Bitcoin Core released
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/20/#changes-to-services-and-client-software

Bitcoin Core 31.0rc1 is a release candidate for the next major version of the predominant full node implementation. A testing guide is available...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/20/#bitcoin-core-31-0rc1

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 16:30 UTC.

Bitcoin Core v31.0rc1, FIBRE, Cake, Sparrow - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #397

Jonathan Harvey-Buschel joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #396:

- Collision-resistant hash function for Bitcoin Script
- Continued discussion of Gossip Observer traffic analysis tool
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/03/17/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/kr8hTL0nldH8CQ7SCt5v

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4u9tGb93ZZxKWCsgnsa3Pb

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-396-recap/id1674626983?i=1000755815619

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #396 Recap Podcast

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #396 is here:

- describes a collision-resistant hash function using Bitcoin Script
- summarizes continued discussion of Lightning Network traffic analysis
- Optech Newsletter #396 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/13/

Robin Linus posted to Delving Bitcoin about Binohash, a new collision-resistant hash function using Bitcoin Script…
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/13/#collision-resistant-hash-function-for-bitcoin-script

Jonathan Harvey-Buschel posted updates about Gossip Observer, a tool for collecting LN gossip traffic and computing metrics to evaluate replacing message flooding with a set-reconciliation-based protocol…
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/13/#continued-discussion-of-gossip-observer-traffic-analysis-tool

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 16:30 UTC.

Binohash, LN gossip observer - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #396

Jon McAlpine, Antoine Poinsot, Mike Casey, and Ethan Heilman joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #395:

- A standard for stateless VTXO verification
- Draft BIP for expanded nVersion nonce space for miners
- Extensions to standard tooling for TEMPLATEHASH-CSFS-IK support
- Hourglass V2 update
- Algorithm agility for Bitcoin
- The limitations of cryptographic agility in Bitcoin
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/03/10/  

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/662j7DIN0bkqLa4UPCyQ

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rTY9h9m56q19wgPAjLax1

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-395-recap/id1674626983?i=1000754691086

VTXOs, Quantum, TemplateHash - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #395 Recap Podcast

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #395 is here:

- describes a standard for verifying VTXOs across different Ark implementations
- links to a draft BIP for expanding the miner-usable nonce space in the block header’s nVersion field
- points to extensions to standard tooling for TEMPLATEHASH-CSFS-IK support
- summarizes updates to the Hourglass V2 proposal
- examines perspectives on cryptographic algorithm agility for Bitcoin
- Optech Newsletter #395 Podcast

Jgmcalpine posted to Delving Bitcoin about his proposal for V-PACK, a stateless VTXO verification standard, which aims to provide a mechanism to independently verify and visualize VTXOs in the Ark ecosystem...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/06/#a-standard-for-stateless-vtxo-verification

Matt Corallo posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a draft BIP to increase the number of bits available in nVersion’s nonce space for miners from 16 to 24...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/06/#draft-bip-for-expanded-nversion-nonce-space-for-miners

Antoine Poinsot wrote on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about his preliminary work to integrate the taproot-native OP_TEMPLATEHASH soft fork proposal into miniscript and PSBTs...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/06/#extensions-to-standard-tooling-for-templatehash-csfs-ik-support

Mike Casey posted an update to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list for the Hourglass protocol to mitigate the market impact of quantum attacks against certain lost coins...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/06/#hourglass-v2-update

Ethan Heilman wrote on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list regarding the potential need for RFC7696 Cryptographic Algorithm Agility in Bitcoin...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/06/#algorithm-agility-for-bitcoin

Pieter Wuille wrote to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about the limitations of the cryptographic agility...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/06/#the-limitations-of-cryptographic-agility-in-bitcoin

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

Changing consensus, VTXOs, nVersion nonce space - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #395

Craig Raw and Fabian Jahr joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #394:

- Draft BIP for output script descriptor annotations
- ASMap in Bitcoin Core
- Bitcoin Stack Exchange questions about BIP324 and spy mining
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/03/03/  

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/ZSsrDWgcl4JV5lFgcmGv

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3HZ8S2MzqUesdXF9MlaR3G

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-394-recap/id1674626983?i=1000752939548

Descriptor annotation, ASMap, Q&A - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #394 Recap Podcast

Descriptor annotations, ASMap, Q&A - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #394

https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/03/03/

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #394 is here:

- looks at a proposed BIP for including supplemental information with output script descriptors
- summarizes popular Q&A from Stack Exchange
- Optech Newsletter #394 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/27/

Craig Raw posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about a new BIP idea to provide useful metadata in the form of annotations, expressed as key/value pairs, appended directly to the descriptor...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/27/#draft-bip-for-output-script-descriptor-annotations

Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange
- Is Bitcoin BIP324 v2 P2P transport distinguishable from random traffic? 
- What if a miner just broadcasts the header and never gives the block? 
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/27/#selected-qa-from-bitcoin-stack-exchange

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

Misha Komarov, Erik De Smedt, and arbedout joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #393:

- Recent OP_RETURN output statistics
- Bitcoin PIPEs v2
- Changes to services and client software including: hArk-based Ark software, Sigbash v2 and others
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/02/24/  

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/F0j1y6kbC1r7M0zINYM6

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7BT9NHtzQGFZegi2UC98OK

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-393-recap/id1674626983?i=1000751237921

PIPEs, hArk, Sigbash v2 - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #393 Recap Podcast

Sebastian Falbesoner and Oleksandr Kurbatov joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #392:

- Proposal to limit the number of per-group silent payment recipients
- BLISK, Boolean circuit Logic Integrated into the Single Key
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/02/17/  

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/cepxpUMU4sikCSbeUtDQ 

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

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-392-recap/id1674626983?i=1000751215295

Silent payments, BLISK - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #392 Recap Podcast

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #393 is here:

- summarizes a discussion about recent OP_RETURN usage
- describes a protocol to enforce covenant-like spending conditions without consensus changes
- summarizes changes to services/client software including Ark software, silent payment and submarine swap support, and more
- Optech Newsletter #393 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/20/

Anthony Towns posted to Delving about the recent OP_RETURN statistics since the release of Bitcoin Core v30.0 on October 10...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/20/#recent-op-return-output-statistics

Misha Komarov posted to Delving Bitcoin about Bitcoin PIPEs, a protocol that allows enforcement of spending conditions without the need for consensus changes or optimistic challenge mechanisms...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/20/#bitcoin-pipes-v2

Changes to services and client software:
- Second releases hArk-based Ark software
- Amboss announces RailsX
- Nunchuk adds silent payment support
- Electrum adds submarine swap features
- Sigbash v2 announced
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/20/#changes-to-services-and-client-software

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

OP_RETURN usage, Bitcoin PIPEs v2, and more - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #393

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #392 is here:

- summarizes discussion of improving worst-case silent payment scanning performance
- describes an idea for enabling many spending conditions in a single key
- Optech Newsletter #392 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/13/

Sebastian Falbesoner posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list the discovery and mitigation of a theoretical attack on silent payment recipients...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/13/#proposal-to-limit-the-number-of-per-group-silent-payment-recipients

Oleksandr Kurbatov posted to Delving Bitcoin about BLISK, a protocol designed to express complex authorization policies using boolean logic...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/13/#blisk-boolean-circuit-logic-integrated-into-the-single-key

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #392

Toby Sharp, Chris Hyunhum Cho, Jonas Nick, and Antoine Poinsot joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #391:

- Work on a constant-time parallelized UTXO database
- A new higher level language for writing Bitcoin Script
- An idea to mitigate dust attacks
- Changing consensus including BIP54 consensus cleanup and post-quantum signature discussions including SHRINCS, Falcon, and SLH-DSA verification performance 
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/02/10/ 

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/l0uUTumdZY0kAla2qy4v

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6tEcuY5BSywl3cacrpaOpP

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-391-recap/id1674626983?i=1000749307135

Jonas Nick, Antoine Poinsot &more - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #391 Recap Podcast

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #391 is here:

- links to work on a constant-time parallelized UTXO database
- summarizes a new high-level language for writing Bitcoin Script
- describes an idea to mitigate dust attacks
- covers the SHRINCS 324-byte stateful post-quantum signatures with static backups paper
- highlights discussion to address remaining points on BIP54
- summarizes the Falcon post-quantum signature scheme proposal
- links to research showing SLH-DSA verification can compete with ECC
- Optech Newsletter #391 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/

Toby Sharp posted to Delving Bitcoin about his latest project, a custom, highly parallel UTXO database, with constant-time queries, called Hornet UTXO(1)...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#a-constant-time-parallelized-utxo-database

Hyunhum Cho wrote on Delving Bitcoin about his work on Bithoven which is an alternative to miniscript...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#bithoven-a-formally-verified-imperative-language-for-bitcoin-script

Bubb1es posted to Delving Bitcoin about a way to dispose of dust attacks in onchain wallets...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#discussion-of-dust-attack-mitigations

Following-up on the Hash-based Signature Schemes for Bitcoin, Jonas Nick detailed on Delving Bitcoin a specific hash-based quantum-resistant signature algorithm with potentially useful properties for use in Bitcoin...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#shrincs-324-byte-stateful-post-quantum-signatures-with-static-backups

Antoine Poinsot wrote about the remaining points of discussion for the consensus cleanup soft fork...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#addressing-remaining-points-on-bip54

Giulio Golinelli posted on the mailing list proposing a fork to enable Falcon signature verification to Bitcoin...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#falcon-post-quantum-signature-scheme-proposal

Conduition wrote about his ongoing work benchmarking his post-quantum SLH-DSA verification implementation against libsecp256k1...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#slh-dsa-verification-can-compete-with-ecc

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

Changing consensus and more - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #391

Liam Eagen joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #390:

- The Argo garbled-circuits scheme
- An LN-Symmetry update
- 5 questions from the Bitcoin Stack Exchange
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/02/03/ 

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/LCVHpTWDFbYJyG789W3L

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1RoYtObqP6LEN0HF6metMH

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-390-recap/id1674626983?i=1000748247314

Argo, LN-Symmetry - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #390 Recap Podcast

bitcoinplusplus

This week in Bitcoin Core

btcpp

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #390 is here:

- summarizes a more efficient approach to garbled circuits
- links to an LN-Symmetry update
- summarizes popular Q&A from Stack Exchange
- Optech Newsletter #390 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/30/

Robin Linus posted to Delving Bitcoin about a new paper by Liam Eagen and Ying Tong Lai describing a technique that will enable 1000 times more efficient garbled locks...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/30/#argo-a-garbled-circuits-scheme-with-more-efficient-off-chain-computation

Gregory Sanders posted an update to Delving Bitcoin about his previous work on LN-Symmetry...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/30/#ln-symmetry-update

Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange
- What is stored in dbcache and with what priority?
- Can one do a coinjoin in Shielded CSV?
- In Bitcoin Core, how to use Tor for broadcasting new transactions only?
- Brassard-Høyer-Tapp (BHT) algorithm and Bitcoin (BIP360)
- Why does BitHash alternate sha256 and ripmed160?
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/30/#selected-qa-from-bitcoin-stack-exchange

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

Garbled circuits, LN-Symmetry, Q&A - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #390

René Pickhardt joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #389:

- A mathematical theory of payment channel networks
- 2 updates to services and client software
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/01/27/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/QO5rMIVxPbZw1bO6abkj 

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5KACVM4RzIGjsBrgXJ5aAv

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-389-recap/id1674626983?i=1000746907140