By EZ in Weekly Digest — Jul 14, 2024

Block 852152: Important News of the Week

News. Updates. Research. Stats. Everything Important You Need to Know.

It's summer. Nothing is happening in Bitcoin. No one follows the news. And you don't have to—we're here to fill you in on the latest notable happenings in Bitcoin and freedom tech.

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News

The US Government has agreed to release Samourai Wallet founder William Lonergan Hill (TDev) on bail. His bail conditions allow him to live in Lisbon, Portugal as the case proceeds, but he will need to return to New York when required to appear in court. The case will proceed on September 10, 2024.
Satoshi Nakamoto Institute, Mi Primer Bitcoin, and Summer of Bitcoin projects have been awarded grants from the newly launched OpenSats Education Initiative. Educators, developers, and advocates are welcome to apply for grants here.
Artur Schaback, co-founder of the exchange Paxful, has accepted a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors for failing to establish an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program from July 2015 to June 2019, as required by the Bank Secrecy Act. He is facing 5-years in prison and will be sentenced on November 4.
Bitcoin exchange and derivative trading platform BitMEX pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by "willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (AML) program." The charges concern the period from 2015 to 2020.
Block announced an agreement to supply Core Scientific with its 3-nanometer (3nm) mining ASICs, representing approximately 15 EH/s of hashrate, with an option for significant volume increases.
Relai, a Swiss-based app for buying bitcoin directly to self-custody, announced that all its users must verify their accounts by October 31, 2024.
The German government has sold off almost all of its 50,000 seized bitcoin. The sales were a part of a standard procedure for assets confiscated in criminal investigations.
The U.S. House voted 228-184 on Thursday in an unsuccessful attempt to override President Joe Biden’s veto of a legislative measure to overturn SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121. The vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn the veto, so the bulletin remains in effect. The SEC is also reportedly working with a "special interest group representing large custody banks" to allow some exceptions to the SAB 121 accounting guidance.
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) hosted a webinar to assess data collection efforts regarding Bitcoin mining operations in the United States. Industry members suggested a broader survey of data centers, not just miners. The EIA plans to start the survey process this year, incorporating public feedback.
The city of Santa Monica, California, has opened a Bitcoin Office. The city council unanimously voted to pilot the office in partnership with the nonprofit Proof of Workforce, at no cost to the city.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) panel approved a draft of its 2024 party platform, which clearly expresses support for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has been officially announced as a speaker at the Bitcoin 2024 conference, which will take place in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 25-27.
GitLab has warned of a critical vulnerability in its GitLab Community and Enterprise editions, allowing attackers to run pipeline jobs as any other user.
Europol now wants to break mobile roaming encryption. Its latest paper treats home routing not as a useful security feature, but as "a serious challenge for lawful interception."
EU countries are set to discuss their 'progress' on Chat Control in October and are to endorse it by 13th of December, reports former MEP Patrick Breyer.
The Suriname Decentralized Conference, a Bitcoin and Nostr event held in the heart of the Amazon, is scheduled for November 7-9, 2024.
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announced the return of the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) to Oslo, Norway, on May 26-28, 2025.

Updates and releases

Wasabi Wallet v2.1.0 introduces safeguards for CoinJoin participants, allowing clients to set their own policies regarding minimum input count and maximum coordination fee to protect against malicious coordinators who try to charge more than announced.
- The project also disclosed that it has been under three different attacks recently. Full disclosure details can be found here.
RoboSats v0.6.3-alpha, the latest release for the peer-to-peer lightning-based bitcoin exchange, includes manual addition of new RoboSats coordinators, a feature-rich notifications endpoint, performance enhancements, improved API documentation, and a toggle for Android users to enable or disable the built-in Tor node when using the app with Orbot.
Phoenix Wallet v2.3.3 and Server v0.3.0 now support BIP-353 DNS addresses. "It allows users to have a user@domain email-like handle, which are much easier to share with friends or on social networks than a BOLT12 offer," said the developers.
Mempool Accelerator™ is now live. Use it to get your stuck transactions confirmed by paying an out-of-band fee.
Bitcoin Core v26.2 is a maintenance release with various bug fixes, performance improvements, and updated translations.
Satonomics v0.2.0 is a big update for a free and open-source alternative to Glassnode. It adds 5000 datasets by block height (only for desktop and tablets), an initial version of light theme, improves app reactivity, and several other cool things.
Liana wallet v6.0 introduces support for the Jade signing device, a number of usability improvements as well as some bug fixes.
New COLDCARD Edge release (v5.3.3X for Mk4 AND v1.2.3QX for Q is available for testing. It comes with a new powerful feature: provably unspendable ranged extended keys and unspend(...) descriptor fragment. It also supports address ownership for taproot, miniscript and tapscript wallets.
Blockstream Greenlight v0.2 is the first major update that brings a host of enhancements and new features.
eNuts v0.4.1-beta: the mobile Cashu wallet now supports Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Italian, Russian, and Thai, along with several user interaction improvements.
LND v0.18.2-beta is the latest minor hot fix release that resolves an issue that arises when handling an error after attempting to broadcasting transactions if a btcd backend with an older version (pre-v0.24.2) is used.
Signal Desktop messenger is set to implement the Electron safeStorage API in its next beta release. This improvement comes after recent controversy, where some users criticized the desktop version for storing encryption keys in plain text.
lnp2pBot v0.10.6, a peer-to-peer Lightning network trading bot working on Telegram now features an updated installation guide, improvements to the /cancelall command, and bug fixes.
Nix-bitcoin v0.0.109: The update includes a patch for the signal handler race condition CVE found in OpenSSH's server (sshd) and several software updates.
HiveTalk, a Lightning and Nostr-enhanced web app for real-time video calls has open-sourced its code under the AGPL-3.0 license.
BTCPay Server Payroll plugin v0.1.4 brings the ability to make invoice upload optional.
Alby Hub v1.0.2, an app for controlling your Lightning node or wallet via Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC), now features themes, the ability to buy extra receiving capacity, and a helpful hub health indicator on the renamed Node page.
Mostro web client v0.0.26 now supports orders with range amounts, displays nsec on the settings page, parses relay list message (NIP-65) improves connectivity with relays.
CASCDR, private Lightning-powered AI service platform, released Word Level Transcripts API.
Latest Nunchuk wallet releases support the ability to replace key(s) in an assisted multisig wallet and roll the funds over.
Boltz Client v2.1.0 implements the Liquid Rebalancing Triangle in an automated fashion. Learn how to get the most out of it here.
Ditto is a new Nostr server for building resilient communities online, with an integrated Nostr relay, web UI, and Mastodon's REST API.
Chamberlain is a new Cashu mint implementation that comes with an integrated LDK Lightning node.
Cryptosteel and Liana by Wizardsardine have announced a partnership to deliver "a groundbreaking solution that will transform secure Bitcoin long-term storage."
Volt Wallet has partnered with Breez to utilize its SDK and integrate Lightning payments into the wallet.
Debifi app v0.0.47: The non-custodial Bitcoin-backed lending platform now allows borrowing in EUR and USD, alongside various fixes and improvements. Debifi also made its app source code publicly available for increased security and transparency.
Invincible Privacy Group (IPG) is an initiative for supporting Bitcoin privacy projects and developers without requiring them to reveal their identities. Users can donate to a general pool of funds or directly to specific projects. Currently, the site lists 9 projects.
Primal Android v1.0.3 has been released. The app has "finally reached the milestone where it is stable and feature-complete enough that we can call it v1.0," said Primal's CEO Miljan.
Primal iOS v1.8.6 features DM performance improvements, network settings for enhanced privacy and the ability to set a caching service, along with stability improvements.
Amber v1.1.0, the Nostr event signer for Android, comes with multiple fixes and improvements.
Lava Wallet recently launched Lava Free Pay and Lava Exchange. Lava Exchange enables users to buy Bitcoin within the app and deposit it directly into self-custody. Lava Free Pay integrates stablecoins into the wallet, facilitating free, instant, and global payments.
Mutiny Node v1.7.12 adds a hotfix for some federation guardians who had issues with xyz domains. "A longer term fix is in progress and will probably be in the next major fedimint release," said the project.
Braiins Toolbox v24.06: This update makes free batch management software available to the public, includes simplified IP address uploading via CSV files, and offers user interface improvements.
Braiins Proxy v24.06 adds several new features to Braiins' free hashrate aggregation software, including a new graphical user interface for Farm Proxy setup, upstream Stratum password support, and improved stability.
Caravan is a free and open-source, stateless multisig coordinator that can be used to build multisig wallets derived from xpubs or individual multisig addresses derived from pubkeys.
Lendasat, a platform for instant, P2P, Bitcoin-collateralized loans via Lightning, shared a post introducing their approach to building DLC VTXOs on Ark. Users can sign up for early access here.
Ginger Wallet v2.0.9, a fork of Wasabi Wallet with 'compliant coinjoins,' now includes manual coin control and sets Ginger coordinator as the default, which cannot be changed.
Fully Noded v1.1.1: Highlights of the new release include BBQr support, updated UR support, and improved compatibility with various hardware and software wallets.
Zeus wallet v0.9.0-alpha13 has been rolled out to Zeus community supporters. It comes with CLNRest interface for Core Lightning, custom fee estimator for embedded LND, and several bug fixes.
GrapheneOS v2024070900 has been released with the latest security improvements and software updates.
Tor Browser v13.5.1 is now available. It includes important security updates to Firefox.
Holesail v0.3.0 is now available on the Play Store and iOS App Store. Holesail is a free and open-source application that lets you securely share any locally running application on a specific port with third parties using a single command. It runs on the Holepunch protocol.
Nostrmo v2.8.0, a Nostr client available for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web, and Linux, has been updated with better login support using Nostr signers.
Orocolo v0.4, a minimalist Nostr blog that consists of a single HTML file, now comes with a dark mode.
Zaprite announced a 2.5 million sats bounty to anyone willing to build a FOSS lightning wallet UI on top of Phoenix Server. More details here.
A 1 million sats bounty is offered for creating an Instagram-like UX for Amethyst.
Lightspark, a Lightning network infrastructure and services provider for enterprises, has implemented Force Closure Recovery and LDK Async Signing into its stack.
Blockstream Green Desktop v2.0.8 adds notifications and flow for redepositing 2FA expired coins.
Hodl Hodl P2P bitcoin exchange has rolled out several visual and functional updates to the My Offers & My Contracts pages.
Timechain Calendar v0.5.15 fixes a 'sneaky' bug while scrolling on mobile.
Lightning Terminal v0.13.2-alpha updates the integrated LND to the latest release, v0.18.2-beta, which contains a hot fix.
BitBox02 firmware v9.19.0 and BitBoxApp v4.43.0: include improved fee recommendations, support for SLIP-24 payment requests, and display the device name before unlocking it.
PayPerQ, a pay-per-usage AI platform utilizing Lightning network for payments, has integrated image inpainting for editing images in fun and interesting ways.
Unchained platform now supports sending Bitcoin directly to Taproot addresses.
Nostur v1.15.0, a nostr client for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, has been released. This version supports video uploads, top zaps, a discover feed, improved Web-of-Trust (WoT) spam filtering, and more.
Geyser crowdfunding platform launched Project Affiliates - a referral system for projects that incentivizes project sharing. Learn how to add affiliates to your project here.
Cashu Development Kit (CDK) v0.2.0 has been tagged. It introduces TokenV4, which uses CBOR encoding as the default token format. It also includes fee support for both wallet and mint operations, and introduces a Mint binary cdk-mintd.
Sequentia, an upcoming Bitcoin sidechain based on a fork of Elements, announced the launch of a signet and a demo walkthrough.
Sparkhub by Sulu: The API monetization platform has introduced Bitcoin top-ups via Lightning.
Voyage v0.7.0, a lightweight nostr client for Android with a Reddit-like UI, now supports profile and topic lists.
Stacker.news released part 1 and part 2 of its new referral system.
Spaces Protocol, a naming protocol for scalable and permissionless Bitcoin identities is now available for testing on testnet3.
Nostrduino v1.2.4, nostr-tools inspired library for Arduino and other microcontrollers, has been released.

Research and guides

Jonas Nick and Tim Ruffing have been working in a BIP draft for Distributed Key Generation for FROST Threshold Signatures. The draft includes design considerations, usage instructions, a Python reference implementation, and is now open for community feedback.
BTCPay Server published an improved and stress-tested step-by-step guide on using BTCPay Server to generate BoltCards for local communities. Check it out here.
Bitcoin Policy UK released a Bitcoin mining research paper highlighting the potential of Bitcoin mining to enhance renewable energy systems by adjusting to grid demands and supporting the integration of renewable sources.
Aspiring open-source software contributors should explore this comprehensive guide.
Receive Payjoin V2: Dan Gould provides a step-by-step guide on how to receive an asynchronous BIP 77 Payjoin Version 2 using the Payjoin crate in the Payjoin Dev Kit (PDK).
George Saoulidis wrote an ultimate Bitaxe guide for up-and-coming bitcoin home miners.
BTC Sessions shared a new v ideo guide on how to use COLDCARD Q as your offline password manager.
Bitcoin Optech #311: Testnet4 Including PoW Difficulty Adjustment Fix