By EZ in Weekly Digest — Aug 10, 2024

Block 856136: Important News of the Week

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

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News

Mutiny Wallet is shutting down. "Our company is exploring alternative products, we'll be shutting down the wallet at the end of the year but you can still self host," announced the project. The team cited the difficulties of developing and maintaining a consumer-facing app with limited resources as the key reason for ceasing the project's maintenance. However, the code remains free and open-source, allowing the community to potentially continue its development.
Dark Skippy disclosure. A malicious signer could use a modified signing function to exfiltrate their master secret seed by embedding it in transaction signatures, as disclosed by utxoclub. This exploit requires the signer to be corrupted through malicious firmware and does not affect hardware wallets that use multisig between the host and signing device.

mempoolfullrbf=1. Full-RBF policy is going to be enabled by default in Bitcoin Core v28.0.
More OpenSats grants. OpenSats, a non-profit focused on funding Bitcoin and freedom tech projects, has announced the sixth wave of Nostr grants, awarding nine projects. The organization has also granted long-term support to Kieran Harkin, who will use it to improve Snort client, and develop native apps for z ap.stream, including a new backend to create a marketplace of streaming providers.
Build Asset Management to donate 10% of management fees for open-source Bitcoin developers. The company has committed to donating 10% of management fees from its Bitcoin-backed direct lending fund, Build Secured Income Fund I. The donations will be no-strings-attached and will occur monthly, split equally between OpenSats and the Human Rights Foundation's Bitcoin Development Fund.
ARK funds open-source Bitcoin developers. ARK Invest is donating a fixed percentage of revenue from its spot Bitcoin ETF (not profit) to non-profits like OpenSats, The Human Rights Foundation, and Brink.

ARK TO DONATE A FIXED PERCENTAGE OF REVENUE TO OPEN SOURCE CONTRIBUTORS IN PERPETUITY. pic.twitter.com/133Pm68e8T
— OpenSats (@OpenSats) August 3, 2024

Thunder Funder. Lightning Ventures launched Thunder Funder, a Regulation Crowdfunding portal designed to democratize early-stage investing in Bitcoin and open-source startups for both accredited and non-accredited investors. The platform allows companies to raise up to $5 million annually from the public, according to Bitcoin Magazine.
Semler Scientific buys 101 BTC. The public medical technology company purchased an additional $6 million in Bitcoin, increasing its total holdings to 929 BTC valued at $63 million. Semler adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy in May 2024.
Metaplanet prepares for more bitcoin shopping. he publicly listed Japanese investment firm has obtained a ¥1 billion ($6.8 million) loan to buy more Bitcoin. This follows its announcement to raise ¥10.08 billion through a stock rights offering, primarily for Bitcoin purchases, reports Bitcoin Magazine.
Norway is set to ban Bitcoin mining without public consultations by the end of the year. The country's Ministry of Digitalization and Public Administration told The Open Dialogue Foundation that it "has no plans to conduct a public consultation" on a ban on cryptocurrency mining in the country, which is likely coming by the year-end. Norwegian citizens are encouraged to reach out to their government, requesting public consultation and providing arguments about the social benefits of Bitcoin mining.
'Crypto for Harris.' The Democrats in the United States have launched the "Crypto for Harris" campaign to engage the cryptocurrency community and counter Donald Trump's growing influence in the sector.
IMF seeks agreement on fiscal policy with El Salvador. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to El Salvador has released a statement focused on supporting the country's medium-term growth, all while "mitigating fiscal and financial stability risks related to Bitcoin."

"We welcome this acknowledgment, and we believe that these risks will, in fact, never materialize in El Salvador," the head of the office, Stacy Herbert, told Forbes.

Qatar to 'legalize digital assets' by Q4 2024. The country is developing a regulatory framework for digital assets, pivoting from its previous hardline stance against Bitcoin. The Qatar Central Bank banned Bitcoin trading in 2018, citing the need to protect the financial system and consumers.
Russian mining legislation signed into law. As reported, only Russian legal entities and registered individual entrepreneurs can mine legally. Individuals staying within government-set energy limits can mine without registration. The Bank of Russia, Ministry of Finance, and a select cabinet will oversee the mining industry. Additionally, the bill bans mass cryptocurrency advertising in Russia.
Ireland increases its seized bitcoin stash. Irish police have seized €6.5 million ($7.1 million) in bitcoin and monero from three individuals in Dublin arrested for allegedly aiding a dark web and money laundering operation.
Nearly 3000 Bitcoin reserve support letters. A group of citizens has sent nearly 3000 letters to U.S. senators, seeking support the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve legislation.
Craig Wright fails to file a COPA appeal. Faketoshi has not appealed his UK court verdict, despite two of his online accounts claiming he had.
1password Mac users are urged to update. An issue in 1Password for Mac has been identified that compromises the app's platform security, allowing a local malicious process to bypass inter-process communication protections. This affects all versions of 1Password 8 for Mac prior to 8.10.36 (July 2024), which resolves the issue.
Chaincode Labs is offering a Bitcoin scholarship covering 100% tuition for an undergraduate anywhere in the world. Applications are open until August 31.
CUBO+ is inviting Salvadoran Bitcoin developers to its Devs Generation 2024 program, providing a technical understanding of Bitcoin. The application deadline is August 26.
SATO 🤝 Breez SDK. SATO, a full-service bitcoin computing company, has partnered with Breez to integrate the Lightning network to its newly launched Club Mining app for bitcoin miners.
Swan cancels Pacific Bitcoin 2024. "We’re fully focused on Swan’s core business right now, and after going through a staff reduction last month it just doesn’t feel like the right time for a festival. We aim to be back in Santa Monica next year," said the company's CEO Cory Klippsten.
Thailand Bitcoin Conference 2024 is set to take place on September 14-15, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand. Get your tickets here.

Updates and releases

Fedi announced the first full release of its Bitcoin community “super app” during a livestream on Tuesday. The app is now available on Android and iOS. Fedi is currently "source available," meaning the code is available for inspection by the public, but the project is set to transition to a full AGPL open source license (Affero General Public License) by January 2026.
Aqua Wallet v0.2.0 lowers Liquid transaction fees, adds replace-by-fee (RBF) support for bitcoin, and introduces support for native USDT transactions. It also supports Taproot swaps for cooperative instant refunds on failed Lightning sends and fixes many bugs throughout the app.
Nostr Development Kit (NDK) v2.10 brings optimistic signature verification, Nostr cache adapter, refactored zapping interface, NIP-60-based NDK wallets, and new and improved high-level documentation.
Stack Duo wallet v1.2.2 features desktop QR code scanning, FROST multi-address functionality, and numerous bug fixes.
Fedimint v0.4.0 adds support for changing peer DNS names and includes performance improvements, bug fixes, code hardening, and general cleanup with updated dependencies.
- "While this upgrade is fully forwards and backwards compatible, it requires coordination between guardians to upgrade. Please carefully follow the release notes and reach out to us on Discord."
RaspiBlitz v1.11.1 brings a redesign of the WebUI setup and recovery process. It also includes a variety of software updates and improvements.
MyNode v0.3.30 includes an option to enable or disable IPv6, improved efficiency in gathering drive storage information, and the latest software updates.
Live Wallet v0.4.0, an app for estimating the impact of Bitcoin transaction fees on individual UTXOs and transactions containing multiple UTXOs, now supports multisig and unchained configuration file imports.
Breez SDK Liquid v0.2.1 is a minor release that resolves a conflict in React Native with os.Logger.
Alby Hub v1.4.1 is a patch release addressing invoice creation in LND for users with only private channels, where route hints were not generated. It also fixes an issue where podcasting payments appeared twice on the transaction list and improves relay reconnection logic by implementing an exponential backoff interval.
Zeus v0.9.0-beta4 is now available for testing. This version uses LND v0.18.2-beta for Embedded Node, and includes several fixes and optimizations.
Amethyst v0.89.8 introduces a 'Delete All Drafts' button, enables crossfading between image states, and includes many more fixes and improvements. Amethyst v0.89.9 adds improvements to the outbox model to filter large follow lists.
Bitcoin Knots v27.1.knots20240801 has been released with updated RPCs, disabled UPnP and NAT-PMP by default, and improved parameter validation for /rest/getutxos .
OPAGO PAY, a Bitcoin and Lightning payment processor, introduced new DATEV export interface to its Merchant Dashboard. Initially, the feature will be free of charge.
NostrDice is a provably fair game built on Nostr and Lightning, and a tribute to SatoshiDICE. For an in-depth explanation on how it works, check out the rules of the game and the project's repository. Or simply play it here.
Swiss Bitcoin Pay app v2.1.0 adds new backend support.
Numeraire SwissKnife v0.1.0 has been released. It is a wallet and transaction orchestrator enabling easy integration of Bitcoin, Lightning, Nostr and smart contract protocols to any entity that wishes so without the complexities of these technologies.
Stacker.news now supports random zap amounts and WebLN attached wallets.
Satimoto v0.5.0, an electric vehicle charging service with no sign-ups and no credit cards, has added a ForegroundService for Android and NotificationServiceExtension for iOS for better handling of the Breez SDK notification plugin.

"With this all notifications received by the application are processed immediately, and messages related to the registered webhook are handled by the plugin. This means LNURL-pay requests can be handled by the application, even when it is in the background or closed, and the resulting payment is also received while the application is not in the foreground," said the developer.

nostr-zap v1.0.1 now handles invoice fetching error.
The Comingle iOS app is now available in its first public beta. It is an events app powered by Nostr.
Bitcoin Keeper v1.2.12 has been released. It comes with automatic cloud backups, custom fees for auto-transfers, ability to hide assisted keys, extra info on signing device history screen, bug fixes and performance improvements.
PlebLab has launched PlebTV, a platform similar to Netflix for Bitcoiners, focused on showcasing and preserving educational video content accumulated since 2021. It includes premium content leveraging the new Zaprite API for an enhanced experience for users who prefer to pay in Bitcoin.

Version 0.12.3 of Mostro peer-to-peer exchange has been released. It features update to Nostr events, introduces 'in-memory' price cache, resubscribe invoices, scheduler event with relay list, and more.
BitForge Nano by @wantclue is an innovative, open-source Bitcoin miner designed for home use, utilizing 2x BM1368 ASIC chips to deliver over 1 TH/s. Support the project here.
BitKit Wallet v1.0.3 introduces comment functionality for LNURL-pay, a liquidity information screen for receiving transactions, minor UI changes, and various bug fixes.
10101 v2.4.8, a self-custodial Bitcoin derivatives trading app using Discreet Log Contracts (DLC) for trustless trade execution, introduces funding rates.
Grain v0.1.1, an open-source Nostr relay implementation written in Go, now features whitelist configuration overhaul, server timeout configuration, and event import functionality.
GrapheneOS v2024080500 is an early August security update based on the August 2024 security patch backports. "This month's release of the Android Open Source Project and stock Pixel OS should be available later today or tomorrow," the team stated.
Obscura VPN release v1.95 for macOS testers is here. It makes the VPN connection significantly more robust.

Guides and research

Bitcoin Optech #315. This issue covers the Dark Skippy attack, discusses block withholding, shares stats on compact block reconstruction, outlines a replacement cycling attack on pay-to-anchor transactions, introduces a new BIP for threshold signing with FROST, and notes an Eftrace improvement for verifying zk-proofs.
QnA shared a pretty good privacy flow for most average Bitcoin use cases.

Mining stats

The network's hashrate (7-day SMA) is currently at ~623 EH/s. The next difficulty adjustment is set to occur in ~4 days.
"The current hashprice makes it a challenging environment in bitcoin mining, especially for those without competitive power costs," reports Miner Weekly.