Socratic Seminar 21

[vnprc]

Welcome

Hello Bitcoiners! This is where we'll organize the topics of discussion for our upcoming Socratic Seminar.

Please use this issue to suggest topics that you'd like to see discussed at the seminar. To suggest a topic, simply add a new comment to this issue with the topic title as the comment's title.

As we work through organizing the topics, feel free to edit and update your comments as needed. This will help us keep everything organized and easy to follow.

To help get us started, here are some main topics of discussion that we could consider:

• Bitcoin Core
• Lightning Network
• Scaling
• Privacy
• Media
• Miscellaneous

• Remember, this is Bitcoin only, do not post about your favorite clown-coin.
  Thank you for your contributions and we look forward to a great seminar!

[vnprc]

Lightning

CLN v23.08 release

Fast on the heels of the face-melting v0.9.0 eclair release, the CLN v23.08 release just dropped a slew of 🔥 new features. Among the most notable improvements are: improved dual funding support (now interoperable with eclair), splicing (❗), pickhardt payments (‼️), an improved REST API, improved rune support, taproot address support (for the on-chain wallet). There are also a slew of other improvements targeting usability, reliability, and plugin support. Check out these three blog posts to get the full story. It seems like the competition between LN Node implementations has recently been electrified with thunderous results!

[vnprc]

Lightning

DoS: Fake Lightning Channels

Lightning developer Matt Morehouse released a blog post detailing a DoS vulnerability he discovered that impacts all major node implementations. The attack is accomplished by announcing a new channel open to the victim node but never sharing the funding transaction. The author tested this attack on all major node implementations. Notably, CLN was the only node that was clearly able to keep off-chain funds safe thanks to its multiprocess architecture. Lightning nodes released before versions LND 0.16.0, CLN 23.02, eclair 0.9.0, and LDK 0.0.114 are vulnerable. If you're using older versions, your funds might be at risk. It's advised to update to the mentioned versions or newer to safeguard your node.

[vnprc]

Covenants

Combined CTV+APO Proposal

Developer Brandon Black has released a new covenant proposal that aims to combine the BIP-119 CTV and BIP-118 APO proposals into a one by building on previous covenant designs. The new proposal is initially constrained to be similar to CTV but it provides a clear upgrade path to remove these constraints and provide a more general covenant in the future. It is compatible with LN-Symmetry, PTLCs, and OP_VAULT. Check out this podcast to hear about this proposal in the author's own words.

[vnprc]

New coin selection algorithm for bitcoin core focused on minimizing the size of the input set and maintaining a large UTXO set. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/27877

[vnprc]

Coinmetrics releases a report with a novel methodology for identifying ASICs from blockchain data. "We fingerprinted ~all major ASICs to pinpoint Bitcoin’s energy usage, e-waste, & efficiency"

https://twitter.com/karimhelpme/status/1668592283871244288