April 2022 topics list

[GambolingPangolin]

To contribute topics or improve the topics list, please either (1) make comments on this PR or (2) open a PR against this branch with your changes. You can also raise suggestions by Tweeting at us or in the Telegram group.

[MatulefM]

Pricing liquidity for Lightning wallets

• Credit: José I. Rojas Echenique & Nicolas Burtey
• “The possibility of liquidity arbitrage on the Lightning network sets a market rate for inbound liquidity.”

The Exact Security of BIP32 Wallets - A Review

• Credit: Poulami Das, Andreas Erwig, Sebastian Faust, Julian Loss, & Siavash Riahi
• “by moving to an alternative key derivation method we can achieve a tighter reduction offering an additional 20 bits of security (111 vs. 91 bits of security) at no additional costs.”
• Twitter thread from Christopher Allen
• Provable Security for Deterministic Wallets | Cybersecurity Seminars (Video)
• What is BIP 0032? (Bitcoin Wiki)

Block (formerly Square) Hardware Wallet Update: Fingerprints, batteries and people

• Credit: Block
• “We believe PINs, passwords, and seed phrases are confusing and often not secure given the workarounds normal people have to create given all the friction.”
• How the wallet we're building works
• "we are designing for people who will have a lot to learn – about bitcoin, wallets, and the technology they need to use for both."

Eu Parliament Backtracks Ban On Bitcoin’s Proof-Of-Work

• Credit : Namcios / Bitcoin Magazine
• New York State Assembly Bill A.7389C / S. 6486C | "a moratorium on proof-of-work mining operations in New York"
• Implications of Outlawing Bitcoin by Gigi
• “Communication does not lose constitutional protection as “speech” simply because it is expressed in the language of computer code.”
• Bernstein v. the U.S. Department of State
• “Landmark legal decision (1996) that set two important precedents in the field of digital technology. First, it ruled that U.S. government regulations that barred the export of encryption software were unconstitutionally restrictive; second, it declared that software source code can be a form of protected free speech.”

A historical analysis of spam attacks conducted on the Bitcoin network.

• Credit: Jameson Lopp
• “It should be clear by now that transaction spammers are simply burning their money.”

What Are Bitcoin Submarine Swaps?

• Credit: Che Kohler / The Bitcoin Manual
• “Submarine swaps allow users and wallet providers to send funds to the lightning network from the bitcoin base chain or from the base chain to the lightning network without using a third party service. A Bitcoin smart contract provides a path where users can fund their lightning wallets or bitcoin wallets seamlessly.”
• A Closer Look by Florencia Ravenna / MUUN

[Lightning-dev] Code for sub second runtime of piecewise linarization to quickly approximate the minimum convex cost flow problem (makes fast multi part payments with large amounts possible)

• Credit: René Pickhardt
• “necessary for optimally reliable and cheap payment flows to deliver large multi part payments over the Lightning Network.”
• Hell (f-king) Yeah!!1!

[Dimi8146]

Stratum V2 Demo

[MatulefM]

Stratum V2 Demo

Adding to the submission from @Dimi8146

Galaxy Digital’s latest report on Stratum V2

• Credit: Galaxy Digital
• “It is up to the developers to provide a mining protocol that aligns censorship resistance with miner incentivization. Stratum V2 is that effort, and it will improve Bitcoin for all who use it.”
• Summary by Braiins
• “Stratum V2 represents historic improvements to security, profitability, and efficiency of pool Bitcoin mining”
• First Demo (Video)

[MatulefM]

Correction to prohibited activities

Not sure if you guys would want this to be two distinct topics, but I feel they are related

---

The National Crime Agency vs non custodial CoinJoin

• Credit: Samourai Wallet

• "We believe the vast majority of users who are using non custodial CoinJoin software are law abiding and simply trying to obtain a basic level of financial privacy when using a transparent and public blockchain."

• Wasabi Wallet Parent Company Explains Decision To Censor Bitcoin Transactions by Namcios / Bitcoin Magazine

• “We did our research and really went into the legal details, there are no current regulations on ongoing joint coordinators. However, I’m aware this is going to change in the future.”

• zkSNACKs' Blacklisting Update by Wasabi Wallet

• "Our ultimate goal is to bring privacy to Bitcoin users and blacklisting was a necessary move, enabling us to continue to do so."

• A Comprehensive Bitcoin Coinjoin Guide by Arman The Parman / Bitcoin Magazine

• “CoinJoining does not hide the size of your KYC (Know Your Customer) bitcoin stack from the government. it may be impossible for the government to know what address(s) your bitcoin is in, but they still know you own bitcoin. If they ever pass laws to confiscate bitcoin or to tax unrealized gains, they can know exactly how much you have.”

[MatulefM]

Running Bitcoin Core v0.7 and Earlier - An exploration into eccentricities of trying to sync extremely old versions of Bitcoin Core.

• Credit: Jameson Lopp
• “In order to get really old versions of Bitcoin software to sync to chain tip, some changes are needed. It's additionally tricky because we can see that not all consensus critical code is necessarily code written by Bitcoin developers - sometimes it's in third party libraries that have changed over time, thus making the software build process itself a potential point of consensus failure!”

BIP21 is a no brainer - At the moment there is a massive UX hurdle that exists for users of different bitcoin wallet software providers.

• Credit: Marty Bent
• “Asking users to choose between on-chain and lightning payments can be confusing - but it’s been necessary to maintain interoperability between wallets”
• Consider Using URs? By Christopher Allen

How to Design Schnorr Signatures (Video)

• Credit: Waxwing, Bitcoinology & Alex Waltz
• Introduction to Schnorr Signatures by Nadav Kohen / Suredbits

[MatulefM]

[Lightning-dev] Taproot-aware Channel Announcements + Proof Verification

• Credit: Olaoluwa Osuntokun
• “As any flavor of taproot will mean a different on-chain funding output, the existing gossip layer needs some sort of modification, as the BOLTs today don't define how to validate that a given output is actually a taproot channel.”
• Taproot: integrate btcec/v2 and btcwallet changes to support Taproot key spend paths in lnd's wallet #6263

Bitcoin Bounties hub

• Credit: Coinkite

c-lightning Is Now Core Lightning

• Credit: Blockstream
• “We hope the refreshed name better communicates CLN’s focus on interoperability, specification work, and the on-going aim to provide a reference implementation with priority on correctness and robustness.”

EU Parliament Passes Privacy-Busting Crypto Rules Despite Industry Criticism

• Credit: Jack Schickler/Coindesk
• “payers and recipients of even the smallest crypto transactions would need to be identified, including for transactions with unhosted or self-hosted wallets. Further measures under discussion could see unregulated crypto exchanges cut off from the conventional financial system.”
• Brian Armstrong of Coinbase twitter response
• “any time you receive 1,000 euros or more in crypto from a self-hosted wallet, Coinbase will be required to report you to the authorities. This applies even if there is no indication of suspicious activity.”
• Unstoppable Finance twitter thread
• "Make no mistake: No matter the security precautions, these data pots will be too valuable to not get hacked at some point."

Kraken Exchange Integrates Bitcoin’s Lightning Network

• Credit: NAMCIOS/Bitcoin Magazine
• ““Adoption is going to come from people who have fiat in their bank account, and they need to get it into Bitcoin. Kraken is providing an excellent venue for them to do that, and then they can top up their mobile Lightning wallet and use it as a medium of exchange. That’s clearly the next step in terms of Bitcoin’s evolution.” - Pierre Rochard
• Kraken Lightning Node Statistics - Exponential Total Capacity Growth - Credit Amboss

Mempool Launches New Mining Dashboard

• Credit: Mempool

[GambolingPangolin]

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-April/020196.html

[MatulefM]

Taro: A Taproot Asset Representation Overlay

• Credit: Olaoluwa Osuntokun
• “Taro is a Taproot Asset Representation Overlay which allows the issuance of normal and also collectible assets on the main Bitcoin chain.”
• Olaoluwa Osuntokun: Keynote - Open Source Stage - Bitcoin 2022 Conference (Video)
• Announcing Taro: A New Protocol for Multi-Asset Bitcoin and Lightning by Ryan Gentry / Lightning Labs
• "We see Taro as an important step in bitcoinizing the dollar, getting the best of both worlds by 1) issuing assets like stablecoins on the most decentralized and secure blockchain, bitcoin and 2) allowing users to transact on the fastest global payments network with the lowest fees, Lightning.”
• How Taro Brings Assets To Bitcoin Through Taproot And Lightning by Namcios / Bitcoin Magazine
• “By leveraging Bitcoin and Lightning as its rails, Taro could establish an interoperable ecosystem of assets that can unite different use cases while not affecting parties that may not care about such assets. At the same time, the protocol also contributes back to Bitcoin by increasing its network effects in the event that a popularization of the concept drives traffic on the network, thereby increasing the fee payout to miners and ramping up BTC liquidity on the Lightning Network.”