Recent Podcasts

Tales from the Crypt - Rabbit Hole Recap - Bitcoin Week in Review - https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Rabbit-Hole-Recap-Week-of-2020-01-13-ea8g5n

The Stephan Livera Podcast - Pierre-Marie Padiou, CEO of ACINQ - https://stephanlivera.com/episode/142/

Zeus v0.2.0 released
-with support for c-lightning, lnurl-pay, lnurl-withdraw, the ability to set and view your channel fees, and more.

Android APK: https://zeusln.app/zeus-v0.2.0.apk

Developer Signature: https://zeusln.app/zeus-v0.2.0.apk.asc

Full Release Notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v0.2.0

European Central Bank paper on "advantages" of a central bank digital currency highlights negative interest rates, helicopter money, and larger seignorage income.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2351~c8c18bbd60.en.pdf

> ...more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year, according to the company, which declined to provide a list. The computer code underlying its app, analyzed by The New York Times, includes programming language to pair it with augmented-reality glasses; users would potentially be able to identify every person they saw. The tool could identify activists at a protest or an attractive stranger on the subway, revealing not just their names but where they lived, what they did and whom they knew.

> When I used my hand to cover my nose and the bottom of my face, the app still returned seven correct matches for me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html

Industry veteran Jonathan Wilkins, a co-founder of bitcoin tech startup Blockstream, is joining up-and-coming bitcoin brokerage River Financial as Chief Security Officer (CSO).

https://www.coindesk.com/blockstream-co-founder-joins-bitcoin-only-startup-river-financial

Recent Podcasts

What Bitcoin Did - Marty Bent - History of bitcoin - https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-5-the-history-of-bitcoin-with-marty-bent

Lightning Junkies - Matt Odell - https://blog.sicksubroutine.com/lnj020-matt-odell-secure-mask/

Tales from the Crypt - The Wonton Don - https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-129-The-Wonton-Don-eaa89o

IDC identifies Hamas bitcoin front with Iran links: https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/ICT-identifies-Hamas-bitcoin-front-with-Iran-links-exclusive-614644

Alleged funding address: https://blockstream.info/address/1LaNXgq2ctDEa4fTha6PTo8sucqzieQctq

> A website called “cash4ps” enables Hamas to send and receive money out of Gaza for operational terror purposes while simultaneously providing a measure of anonymity to either donors or beneficiaries of the funds, said the report.

> ...the report explained that the company connected to the wallet has two physical addresses in Gaza: (i) in A Rimal neighborhood across from a mosque and (ii) Rafah – Balad next to the civil defense office (possibly on the Egyptian side).

Ronin Dojo v1.2 released

- Whirlpool-client-cli 0.10.2
- Dojo 1.4.1
- Enhanced menu options for Dojo
- IBD transfer scripts
- Added backup drive script
- Temporary removal of Electrs

https://github.com/RoninDojo/RoninDojo

txCast: Randomised Bitcoin (testnet) transaction broadcasting to break timing analysis.

Github: https://github.com/6102bitcoin/txCast​

Medium: https://link.medium.com/3hAZmvSPp3​

> If a bunch of similar utxos (for example bech32 CoinJoin outputs) which have been dormant for a number of months are all spent in the same block it is possible that a blockchain analyst could cluster the utxos based on timing analysis.

MyNode v0.1.80 released

- Add BTCPay Server
- Upgrade RTL to v0.6.3
- Whirlpool is part of community edition
- Disable Wifi MAC Randomization
- Add Mempool.Space port to Tor access

http://mynodebtc.com/

Introducing BTCPay Vault – use any hardware wallet with BTCPay and its full node

https://blog.btcpayserver.org/btcpay-vault/

Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT

> Apple’s iCloud, on the other hand, can be searched in secret. In the first half of last year, the period covered by Apple’s most recent semiannual transparency report on requests for data it receives from government agencies, U.S. authorities armed with regular court papers asked for and obtained full device backups or other iCloud content in 1,568 cases, covering about 6,000 accounts.

> ...backed-up contact information and texts from iMessage, WhatsApp and other encrypted services remain available to Apple employees and authorities.

Liquid support coming to Bisq V1.2.6 enabling KYC free exchange between bitcoin and the federated Liquid sidechain

https://twitter.com/wiz/status/1219680013370310657

Square Crypto announces Lightning Development Kit

https://medium.com/@squarecrypto/what-were-building-lightning-development-kit-1ed58b0cab06

- Add Lightning capabilities to existing bitcoin wallets — no need to create a separate wallet just for Lightning.
- Support multi-device, multi-application access to a single wallet.
- Allow wallets to make UX/security/privacy tradeoffs such as external transaction signing and customizing their state backup to a cloud service.

The case for ... cities that aren't dystopian surveillance states

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2020/jan/17/the-case-for-cities-where-youre-the-sensor-not-the-thing-being-sensed

> It all comes down to whether you are a sensor – or a thing to be sensed. In the “internet of things,” we’re promised technology that will allow us to project our will on to our surroundings, changing our lighting or unlocking our doors or adjusting our thermostats from anywhere in the world. But anyone who’s used these technologies for more than a few minutes quickly starts to suspect that they are also a thing, just another thing to be sensed and acted upon from a distance, generally by unaccountable algorithms seeking to corral us into altering our conduct to maximise returns to their manufacturers’ shareholders.

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #81

- test the LND RC
- review of a method for sending payments
part of a chaumian coinjoin
- WIP protocol spec for discreet log contracts
- changes to popular services, client software

https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2020/01/22/

lnd v0.9-beta released

- Multi-path and spontaneous keysend payments
- Macaroon bakery for fine-grained permissions
- Circular payments for liquidity management
- SDK for mobile

https://blog.lightning.engineering/announcement/2020/01/21/lnd-v0.9.html

Square registered a bitcoin related US Patent

https://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20190034888&IDKey=13409B3CD73C

> The present technology permits a first party to pay in any currency, while permitting the second party to be paid in any currency and the merchant can be paid in any currency.

Exchange Cold Wallet Analysis

https://www.longhash.com/en/news/3257

> Coinbase has by far the highest amount of Bitcoin of all crypto exchanges, and its holdings grew substantially over the past year. Moreover, that growth was relatively steady, apparently unaffected by the up-and-downs in prices. It is set to exceed the 1,000,000 threshold very soon.