Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #182

bitcoin

k00b

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #186

cryptocoin

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #195

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #361

> This week’s newsletter describes a proposal to separate the network connections and peer management used for onion message relay from those used for HTLC relay in LN. Also included are our regular sections summarizing discussion about changing Bitcoin’s consensus and listing recent changes to popular Bitcoin infrastructure software.

Coinsreporter

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #357

> This week’s newsletter shares an analysis about syncing full nodes without old witnesses. Also included are our regular sections with descriptions of discussions about changing consensus, announcements of new releases and release candidates, and summaries of notable changes to popular Bitcoin infrastructure software.

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #373

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #373 is here:

- summarizes a vulnerability affecting old versions of Eclair
- summarizes research into full node feerate settings
- summarizes popular Q&A from Stack Exchange
- Optech Newsletter #373 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/09/26/

Matt Morehouse posted to Delving Bitcoin to announce the responsible disclosure of a vulnerability affecting older versions of Eclair...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/09/26/#eclair-vulnerability

Daniela Brozzoni posted to Delving Bitcoin the results of a scan of almost 30,000 full nodes that were accepting incoming connections...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/09/26/#research-into-feerate-settings

Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange:
- Implications of OP_RETURN changes in upcoming Bitcoin Core version 30.0?
- If OP_RETURN relay limits are ineffective, why remove the safeguard instead of keeping it as a default discouragement?
- What are the worst-case stress scenarios from uncapped OP_RETURNs in Bitcoin Core v30?
- If OP_RETURN needed more room, why was the 80-byte cap removed instead of being raised to 160?
- If arbitrary data is inevitable, does removing OP_RETURN limits shift demand toward more harmful storage methods (like UTXO-inflating addresses)?
- If OP_RETURN uncapping doesn’t increase the UTXO set, how does it still contribute to blockchain bloat and centralization pressure?
- How does uncapping OP_RETURN impact long-term fee-market quality and security budget?
- Assurance blockchain will not suffer from illegal content with 100KB OP_RETURN?
- What analysis shows OP_RETURN uncapping won’t harm block propagation or orphan risk? 
- Where does Bitcoin Core keep the XOR obfuscation keys for both block data files and level DB indexes?
- How robust is 1p1c transaction relay in bitcoin core 28.0?
- How can I allow getblocktemplate to include sub 1 sat/vbyte transactions?
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/09/26/#selected-qa-from-bitcoin-stack-exchange

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

schmidty

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #374 Recap Podcast

Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Gustavo Flores Echaiz to discuss Newsletter #374:

- The script restoration BIPs
- A BDK Wallet release and release candidates from Bitcoin Core and LND
- Our weekly notable code segment

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/10/07/ 

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/bN5DD679k2z2NLqaNvHQ 

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Fpd2NSKSAFydTy02y9cUv

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-374-recap/id1674626983?i=1000730656614

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #375

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #375 is here:

- describes research into tradeoffs between usability and security in threshold signatures
- summarizes an approach to convert nested threshold signatures into a single-layer signing group
- examines the extent to which data could be embedded in the UTXO set under a restrictive set of rules
- recaps the "Compact block harness" PR Review Meeting
- Optech Newsletter #375 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/10/10/

Sindura Saraswathi posted research, co-authored by her and Korok Ray, to Delving Bitcoin about determining the optimal threshold for a multisignature scheme...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/10/10/#optimal-threshold-signatures

ZmnSCPxj posted to Delving Bitcoin to describe how to avoid using nested schnorr signatures in some cases that have not been proven safe...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/10/10/#flattening-certain-nested-threshold-signatures

Adam “Waxwing” Gibson started a discussion on the mailing list about the extent to which data could be embedded in the UTXO set under a restrictive set of rules for Bitcoin transactions...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/10/10/#theoretical-limitations-on-embedding-data-in-the-utxo-set

'Compact block harness' is a PR by Crypt-iQ that increases the fuzz test coverage by adding a test harness for the compact block relay logic...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/10/10/#bitcoin-core-pr-review-club

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 

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #376

This week’s newsletter shares an update on the proposal for nodes to share their current block template and summarizes a paper outlining a covenant-less vault construction. Also included are our regular sections announcing new releases and release candidates and describing notable changes to popular Bitcoin infrastructure software.

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #377 Recap Podcast

Abubakar Sadiq Ismail and Carla Kirk-Cohen joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #377:

- Detecting block template feerate increases using cluster mempool
- Channel jamming mitigation simulation results and updates
- BULL wallet launches, Sparrow 2.3.0 released
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/10/28/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/8ax8Sb0R5uFGbVnvja6L 

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0tCMF2SY7a0RIBj0OPaoqM

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-377-recap/id1674626983?i=1000734046586 

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #376 Recap Podcast

Francesco Madonna and supertestnet joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #376:

- Continued discussion of block template sharing
- B-SSL a Secure Bitcoin Signing Layer
- Bitcoin Core 30.0
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/10/21/

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2aZv1l0GhSlUSoerkK0rgs

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-376-recap/id1674626983?i=1000733913844


Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #378 Recap Podcast

Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt discuss Newsletter #378:

- Disclosure of four low-severity vulnerabilities in Bitcoin Core
- Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange including questions on datacarriersize, OP_TEMPLATEHASH and others
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/11/04/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/52iLDnzzU5I7rxb8coJT 

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gvj03rHM7qT0jTnQcMnfH

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-378-recap/id1674626983?i=1000735256317

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #380 Recap Podcast

> Mark @Murch Erhardt and Mike @schmidty are joined by @TheCharlatan to discuss Newsletter #380.
>
> https://d3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net/staging/2025-10-18/412728425-44100-2-e3752b27fd573.m4a
>
> ## News
>
> No significant news this week was found on the Bitcoin-Dev or Lightning-Dev mailing lists.
>
> ## 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) 

0xbitcoiner

TheCharlatan joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #380:

- The Bitcoin Kernel
- And more

You can listen on our website:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2025/11/18/

Fountain:
https://fountain.fm/episode/Qmqqq6fCDHTZt1SL0xxi

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5qGvgMkll7x3KQviU8Vm65

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-newsletter-380-recap/id1674626983?i=1000737307431

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #359

BitcoinIsTheFuture

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #366

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #366 is here:

- announces draft BIPs for Utreexo
- summarizes continued discussion about lowering the minimum transaction relay feerate
- describes a proposal to allow nodes to share their block templates to mitigate problems with divergent mempool policies
- recaps the "Add exportwatchonlywallet RPC to export a watchonly version of a wallet" PR Review Meeting
- includes a recommendation to readers
- issues a correction to last week’s newsletter
- Optech Newsletter #366 Podcast

Calvin Kim posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list to announce three draft BIPs co-authored by him along with Tadge Dryja and Davidson Souza about the Utreexo validation model...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/08/08/#draft-bips-proposed-for-utreexo

Gloria Zhao posted to Delving Bitcoin about lowering the default minimum relay feerate by 90% to 0.1 sat/vbyte...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/08/08/#continued-discussion-about-lowering-the-minimum-relay-feerate

Anthony Towns posted to Delving Bitcoin to suggest full node peers occasionally send each other their current template for the next block using compact block relay encoding...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/08/08/#peer-block-template-sharing-to-mitigate-problems-with-divergent-mempool-policies

Add exportwatchonlywallet RPC to export a watchonly version of a wallet is a PR by achow101 that reduces the amount of manual work required to create a watch-only wallet...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/08/08/#bitcoin-core-pr-review-club

Bitcoin++ Insider has begun publishing reader-funded news about technical Bitcoin topics. Two of their free weekly newsletters, Last Week in Bitcoin and This Week in Bitcoin Core, may be especially interesting to regular readers of the Optech newsletter...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/08/08/#optech-recommends

In last week’s newsletter, we incorrectly described the updated version of BIP360, pay to quantum-resistant hash, as “making exactly the change” that Tim Ruffing showed was secure in his recent paper...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2025/08/08/#correction

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

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #364

Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #367


Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #367 is here:

- LND v0.19.3-beta.rc1
- Bitcoin Core 29.1rc1
- Optech Newsletter #367 Podcast

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
