Bitcoin Optech

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

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-news…

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 https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/03/06/ 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-stand… 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-b… 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/#extensi… 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/#hourgla… 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/#algorit… 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-lim… Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

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-news…

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-b… 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/#selecte… 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-news…

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-news…

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

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-news…

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-const… 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/#bithove… Bubb1es posted to Delving Bitcoin about a way to dispose of dust attacks in onchain wallets... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#discuss… 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… Antoine Poinsot wrote about the remaining points of discussion for the consensus cleanup soft fork... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#address… 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-… 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… Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

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-news…

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-… Gregory Sanders posted an update to Delving Bitcoin about his previous work on LN-Symmetry... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/30/#ln-symm… 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/#selecte… Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.

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-news…

Bruno Garcia explains his vision for incremental mutation testing in Bitcoin Core:

Bruno Garcia joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #388: - Incremental mutation testing in Bitcoin Core - BIP process updated - And more You can listen on our website: https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/01/20/ Fountain: https://fountain.fm/episode/TsQ3V8lAG5hrYWMbmXbn Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/65vfvLBYDXG6I7scbT5cyO Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-news…

Craig Raw (@craigraw) on silent payments. From Optech Recap #387

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #388 is here: - links to a discussion of incremental mutation testing in Bitcoin Core - announces deployment of a new BIP process - Optech Newsletter #388 Podcast https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/16/ Bruno Garcia posted to Delving Bitcoin about his current work on improving mutation testing in Bitcoin Core. Mutation testing is a technique that allows developers to assess the effectiveness of their tests by intentionally adding systemic bugs, called mutants, to the codebase... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/16/#an-over… After more than two months of discussion on the mailing list and another round of amendments to the proposal, it became clear this week that BIP3 had achieved rough consensus... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/16/#bip-pro… Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter on Riverside Tuesday at 17:30 UTC. Join us to discuss or ask questions! https://riverside.com/studio/bitcoin-optech

René Pickhardt and Craig Raw joined Optech to discuss Newsletter #387: - Bitcoin Core wallet migration bug - Using Ark as a channel factory - Draft BIP for silent payment descriptors - And more You can listen on our website: https://bitcoinops.org/en/podcast/2026/01/13/ Fountain: https://fountain.fm/episode/CxvwArgstb80HNzZWxiC Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6jn03puzikUjsuQD4Bmp21 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-optech-news…

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #387 is here: - warns of a wallet migration bug in Bitcoin Core - summarizes a post about using the Ark protocol as an LN channel factory - links to a draft BIP for silent payment descriptors - Optech Newsletter #387 Podcast https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/09/ Bitcoin Core posted a notice of a bug in the legacy wallet migration feature in versions 30.0 and 30.1... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/09/#bitcoin… René Pickhardt wrote on Delving Bitcoin about his discussions and ideas around whether Ark’s best use case might be as a flexible channel factory rather than as an end-user payment solution... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/09/#using-a… Craig Raw posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a proposal for a draft BIP, which defines a new top-level descriptor script expression sp() for silent payments... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/01/09/#draft-b… Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter on http://Riverside.fm Tuesday at 17:30 UTC. Join us to discuss or ask questions! https://riverside.com/studio/bitcoin-optech