10 Tips For Interacting With Bitcoin More Privately

- Don't tell anyone
- Control your own keys + practice coin control
- Use nyms
- Use encryption
- Use Tor/VPN
- Buy non-kyc
- Use your own node
- Transact off chain
- Coinjoin
- Use a privacy focused phone

https://www.bitcoinqna.com/post/10-tips-for-interacting-with-bitcoin-more-privately

Liquid UTXO Expiration Incident

- On June 25th, a large portion of Liquid Network funds (870 bitcoin) were temporarily accessible by a set of emergency keys for approximately 40 minutes.
- 2 of 3 multisig rather than 11 of 15.

Incident report: https://github.com/grubles/temp/blob/master/Liquid%20UTXO%20Expiration%20Incident.pdf

Flood & Loot: A Systemic Attack On The Lightning Network

> In this attack, an attacker forces many victims at once to flood the blockchain with claims for their funds. He is then able to leverage the congestion that they create to steal any funds that were not claimed before the deadline.

Blog: https://medium.com/@jonahar/flood-loot-a-systemic-attack-on-the-lightning-network-5c3dac7bba24

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.08513

Patching the Liquid Timelock Issue

> Bitcoins sent to the Liquid Network through peg-ins are secured in an 11-of-15 multisig wallet that is controlled by the Liquid Federation. To protect against network failures, this multisig wallet uses timelocks to enable a set of 2-of-3 emergency backup keys to recover the funds in the event that the network becomes inactive for an extended period.

> The emergency keys are held by Blockstream in extreme cold storage distributed around the world.

> patch will update the software running on the functionary servers rather than update the HSM firmware, ensuring that the timelocks on the bitcoins held on the network are always refreshed before expiry.

> This is a temporary workaround with some limitations, the main limitation being that the bitcoins held on the network will start to become recoverable by the emergency keys 7 days after the network stops, instead of 14 days as designed. This will provide a shorter safety buffer in the event of a network outage.

> The code for the patch has been submitted to Liquid’s Technology Board for review. Once approved, the patch will be rolled out on a portion of the functionaries (importantly, the planned patch only requires one or two functionaries to adopt the change for it to work). We’ll post a further update once the patch is live.

https://medium.com/blockstream/patching-the-liquid-timelock-issue-b4b2f5f9a973

HWI v1.1.2 released

- UI for toggle passphrase
- Multisig address display for Coldcard and Trezor

Fixed:
- Compatibility with Trezor firmware 1.9.1 and 2.3.0
- Compatibility with Ledger Bitcoin App 1.4.0
- Properly handle PSBTs containing both non_witness_utxo and witness_utxo

https://github.com/bitcoin-core/HWI/releases/tag/1.1.2

Zeus v0.3.0-rc1 released

- lndhub qr scan and clipboard read support
- lndhub: specify http/https
- allow users to change units on the Send view
- new app launcher icon

Android APK: https://zeusln.app/zeus-v0.3.0-rc1.apk

Developer Signature: https://zeusln.app/zeus-v0.3.0-rc1.apk.asc

PGP Key: zeusln.app/PGP.txt

Coldcard updates tamper evident bag design

> A serialized tear off tab of the bag is included inside. You should use this tab to double check the width of the bag. You can also use a magnifying glass to check the perforations of the tab match the bag.

https://coldcardwallet.com/docs/quick

Tails v4.8 released

- Unsafe Browser disabled by default
- Persistent Storage now supports welcome screen settings
- Tor Browser v9.5.1
- Thunderbird v68.9.0

https://tails.boum.org/news/version_4.8/index.en.html

350,000 Aussie Crypto Users Are Receiving Tax Warning Letters

> the ATO letters seem to be targeting a large number of crypto users irrespective of the size of their crypto holdings.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/shehanchandrasekera/2020/06/30/350000-aussie-crypto-users-are-receiving-tax-warning-letters/

This Month in Bitcoin Privacy - June 2020

> This Month in Bitcoin Privacy is a newsletter about privacy-related technology developments, events, and conversations in Bitcoin

https://enegnei.github.io/This-Month-In-Bitcoin-Privacy/June_2020/

OC Bitcoin Network: Full Node Overview

> The OC Bitcoin Network is joined by special guests Stephan Livera and Matt Odell to discuss Bitcoin full nodes. We cover what they are, why they matter, and high-level tradeoffs of some popular implementations such as RoninDojo, RaspiBlitz, MyNode, and Nodl.

youtube: https://youtu.be/qZtVlsbDB0c

Blue Wallet v5.4.4 released

- Air-gapped PSBT with Animated QR codes
- Entropy via Dice rolls
- Entropy via Coin flip

https://twitter.com/bluewalletio/status/1278260153519923201

Joinmarket v0.6.3.1 released

- BIP21 support
- Fidelity bonds backend
- GUI Improvements

release notes: https://github.com/JoinMarket-Org/joinmarket-clientserver/blob/master/docs/release-notes/release-notes-0.6.3.1.md

download: https://github.com/JoinMarket-Org/joinmarket-clientserver/releases/tag/v0.6.3.1

Bitcoin Optech #104

- discussion about mining incentives related to HTLCs
- announcement about a proposed service to store and relay presigned transactions
- recently transcribed talks and conversations

https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2020/07/01/

WORDS Bitcoin Journal June 2020

> 19 Entries
> 490 Minute Read
> WORDS is a monthly journal of Bitcoin commentary.

https://bitcoinwords.github.io/cy20m6

OC Bitcoin Full Node Deep Dive: Nodl

> We're kicking off our series of deep-dives into Bitcoin nodes with this event all about Nodl. Nodl makes a variety of personal Bitcoin node devices and are on a mission to make running a full node accessible to everyone. Ketominer and Askuwheteau from the Nodl team will be going over the products and answering questions.

youtube: https://youtu.be/lu8vrFn4bhE

Tor Browser v9.5.1 released

- Update Firefox to 68.10.0esr
- Update NoScript to 11.0.32
- Additional security updates to Firefox

https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-951

Introducing Fully Noded Wallets

- You can now create wallets directly on the device with private keys stored on your device.

- You can now recover backups from most bitcoin wallets with just the seed and passphrase.

- This includes all samourai derivation paths.

https://medium.com/@FullyNoded/introducing-fully-noded-wallets-9fc2e4837102