By EZ in Weekly Digest — Oct 6, 2024

Block 864476: Important News of the Week

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

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News

OpenSats issues second wave of Education Grants. The latest grantees include Bitcoin Jungle, Bitcoin Indonesia, Deciphering Bitcoin, BOBSpaces Residency - Cohort 3, Satsie's Pocket Guides, and Africa Free Routing.
- If you are an educator, developer, or advocate working on a project aligned with OpenSats mission, apply for funding here.
OpenSats has announced long-term support for Dusty Daemon, recognizing his pivotal role in developing Lightning Network specifications and designing and implementing Splicing. With this support, Dusty will expand the Splicing implementation throughout the Lightning ecosystem and begin developing Splice Script.
PACE recognizes Assange as 'Political Prisoner'. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) strongly condemned the "disproportionately harsh treatment" of Julian Assange, and warned that it creates a "dangerous chilling effect" which undermines protections for journalists and whistleblowers worldwide.

Nigeria sues traders over 'unlicensed USDT and Naira' trades. The Nigerian government has filed lawsuits against four traders and several firms for operating without authorization in the Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (AFEM). They are accused of publicly negotiating USDT to Naira exchange rates, thereby violating Section 29(1)(c) of the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which criminalizes any foreign exchange negotiations that are not legally permitted.
Proton Management denies Swan Bitcoin accusations. In a written response filed on Monday, Proton Management denied allegations made by Swan Bitcoin, asserting that Swan never engaged in a genuine mining business. The company has also requested the dismissal of the case.

"Rather," Proton stated, "as Swan admits in its complaint and publicly, what Swan has called its mining business is really just a separate entity called 2040 Energy, which is fully funded by Tether."

Senior leadership changes at Coin Center. Executive Director Jerry Brito and Senior Policy Counsel Robin Weisman will step down by year-end but will remain on the board. Peter Van Valkenburgh will be the new Executive Director starting January 1, with Landon Zinda as the new Policy Director.
Concerns over Australian misinformation bill. The Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee will review the bill until November 25. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland previously stated that censoring misinformation is necessary to protect democracy.

"This Bill threatens to create a dangerous precedent where any critical discourse, especially on Bitcoin and the financial sector, could be labeled as disinformation, resulting in unjustified censorship," said Bayani Mills, Secretary & Acting-CEO of Australian Bitcoin Industry Body.

Ohio senator introduces bill to legalize bitcoin for state taxes. Senator Niraj Antani has introduced a bill to legalize Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency payments for taxes and fees in Ohio, promoting wider adoption of Bitcoin in state and local government transactions.
Dutch decision puts brakes on Chat Control. Dutch spooks have alerted their government that the latest Chat Control proposal with 'upload moderation' could undermine cybersecurity of the country and endanger national security. This cautionary message is also relevant for other countries to consider as there is no way to systematically scan and report on private messages while keeping them secure.

CZ is out of jail. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was released from custody last Friday after spending four months in a California prison. "Let me chill for a bit. Then figure out the next steps. There are always more opportunities in the future than there were in the past," he said on X.

Tether aids US Department of Justice in seizing over $6M. The funds were linked to a "crypto-confidence scheme based in Southeast Asia." In the past year, Tether helped U.S. law enforcement seize nearly $15 million in USDT from various fraud operations, including pig butchering schemes and a tech support scam network.
Colombia implicates Financial Intelligence Unit in Pegasus scandal. The Egmont Group, an international network for financial intelligence sharing, has suspended Colombia from its platform amid an investigation into whether information on the alleged purchase of Pegasus Spyware was shared with the country's FIU, reports The Rage.
Gemini to close operations in Canada. The exchange's decision follows new Canadian regulations for crypto exchanges. As of February 22, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) require platforms to sign a pre-registration undertaking (PRU) and restrict exchanges from allowing Canadians to buy or deposit stablecoins without CSA approval.
Telegram updates transparency report. In 2024, Telegram responded to over a dozen U.S. law enforcement data requests, potentially revealing the IP addresses or phone numbers of more than one hundred users, reports 404 Media. Pavel Durov added that his company has been disclosing user information since 2018.
Check Point Research (CPR) case study on 'crypto drainer tactics.' Researchers uncovered a malicious app on Google Play that used evasion techniques to avoid detection. The app ranked high in search results for nearly five months before being removed, allowing hackers to steal approximately $70,000 in cryptocurrency from victims. Read more about it here.
New York town of Massena passes mining regulations. The regulations ban seabed containers for bitcoin mining, mandate operations in industrial zones, and enforce noise standards, reports The Miner Mag.
Block expands Mining Development Kit (MDK) Beta. New participants in the program include SmithOffGrid, Wilson Mining, and Freerk.

"[Testers] felt the setup instructions were very clear and appreciated the firmware’s simplicity and clean look. We got a lot of helpful feedback on ways to improve the KPIs reported in the firmware’s dashboard, as well as the need for better API access, log access, and error notifications coupled with resolution procedures. Additionally, we were able to identify valuable learnings from a chip overheating on the hashboard which was traced to issues with the thermal interface material (TIM) application at the factory," said the company.

Musqet secures £750k in funding round led by Axiom. Musqet, a UK Bitcoin payments business, raised £750k led by Axiom and UK-based angel investors to expand Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network.
Metaplanet buys 107.9 bitcoin. The latest purchase brings the company's total bitcoin holdings to 506.7 BTC, worth approximately $30 million.
Value-for-value music. Frank Corva writes that artists earn more in bitcoin by sharing their songs on platforms like Wavlake and Fountain than through traditional currencies on slave tech platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

Updates and releases

JAM v0.3.0, a web interface for JoinMarket, adds an easy way to quickly freeze and unfreeze UTXOs, review eligible or selected UTXOs before sending, and fixes a couple of other issues.
DATUM by OCEAN private beta launched. DATUM (Decentralized Alternative Templates for Universal Mining) is a new decentralized mining protocol designed to empower miners with control over block template construction.
- Interested parties can contact OCEAN for information about joining the exclusive beta or check back on October 18 for details about the upcoming public beta release.
Bitcoin Knots v27.1 package for startOS is here. It brings DATUM compatibility for OCEAN Pool miners.
Live Wallet v0.9.0 is now available on Linux Redhat distributions and Windows. Previously available on Linux and macOS, Live Wallet is a desktop tool to help estimate the effect of bitcoin transaction fees on individual UTXOs and transactions containing multiple UTXOs.

Volt Wallet v0.4.5-beta.1, a mobile descriptor-based 'Financial Freedom Wallet' that focuses on self-custody, privacy and sleek UI/UX, has been released with numerous fixes and updates.
electrs v0.10.6 packages updated dependencies, several bug fixes and optimizations.
Cake Wallet v0.4.20 is now available for testing. It comes with Wallet Seed Groups, Silent Payments enhancements, new swap providers, and more. Join here.
Blockstream Green Wallet Desktop v2.0.12 comes with improved address verification using Jade on redeposits.
- Blockstream Green Wallet Android v4.0.35 introduces the ability to verify addresses with a hardware wallet during 2FA reactivation.

Nunchuk Android v1.9.52 and iOS v1.9.55 versions ship with decoy wallet functionality, a revamped Security PIN, the ability to mark used addresses, export transaction history as PDF, and more.
- Nunchuk Desktop v1.9.38 delivers refactored sign-in flow, HWI v3.1.0, and various bug fixes and improvements.
BitBox Wallet App v4.44.1 is a patch release that fixes a few minor UI issues found in v4.44.0. This latter adds the ability to sell Bitcoin via Pocket in the BitBox App and includes automatic detection of microSD cards.

Ginger Wallet v2.0.12 update introduces label recovery, client-side remix checks, and expanded support for a wider range of compatible hardware wallets.
Kyoto v0.3.0, a simple, memory-conservative, and private Bitcoin client for developers to build wallet applications, has been released.
Bitcoin Dev Kit (BDK) v1.0.0 5th beta is here. This release changes the bdk_wallet transaction creation to enable RBF by default, updates the bdk_esplora client to retry server requests that fail due to rate limiting, and adds the use-openssl feature to the bdk_electrum crate.
Diamond Hands wallet beta launched. The app supports all basic Lightning wallet functions and can be tested with real sats. It also integrates Bolt Link and a 'sats4ads' functionality, making it a unique wallet that pays its users directly in a self-custodial manner.
ARK v0.3 update introduces several security, efficiency, and functionality improvements, including VTXO Tree Signing and a simplified onboarding process.
Blitz Wallet v0.2.9-beta introduces the ability to purchase gift cards with Bitcoin directly in the app. It also includes theme updates, an improved camera, and general stability enhancements.
Zeus v0.9.1-beta1 is now available for testing. Be among the first to check out BOLT 11 blinded paths, the ability to spend full UTXOs, and more.
Alby Hub is now available for node runners on both StartOS and UmbrelOS.
Minibits v0.1.9-beta, a mobile ecash wallet focused on performance and usability, includes significant performance improvements for cryptographic operations, a redesigned main wallet screen, theme support, ecash storage reliability and stability improvements, and various bug fixes.
bullishNuts v0.0.80 comes with refactored Lightning send flow. Try it out here.

LN Markets has released several new user settings, including account migration and recovery via email.
GDK v0.73.1 pre-release is out with a new call to create transactions that re-deposit wallet funds and updated Libwally dependency.
lnrecc v1.0.1 is a a tool for streamlining recurring Lightning payments, such as subscriptions or weekly pocket money for kids.
Fedimint Observer, a Fedimint Federation Explorer, aims to become the "mempool.space for Fedimint." Due to the privacy properties of Fedimint, it won't be able to show concrete transaction flows, but transfers in and out of single federations are visible.
Sphinx-Tribes Backend v0.1.54 has been released.
Amethyst v0.92.1, a free and open source Nostr client for Android, comes with a default Tor service for .onion URLs and untrusted relays access from the Outbox model. It also brings NFC-hosted transient accounts, which log off and delete traces when the app backgrounds, among other things.
Nostur v1.16.0, a Nostr client for Apple devices, brings Nostr Nest integration, live streams, and many more improvements.
Lume v4.2.0, a multi-purpose nostr client for Windows and macOS, introduces Gossip model support, adds client tags, web of trust filter (disabled by default), improves post editor, and enables proof-of-work mechanism by default.
nostrudel.ninja v0.41.0 adds option to wipe wasm relay database, brings support for showing embedded HLS videos, supports pinning articles, adds relay discovery map, and more.
Gossip v0.12.0, a performant and security-oriented desktop client for Nostr, introduces bookmark support, per-relay feeds, friends-of-friends scores in avatars, improved spam filtering, an updated emoji picker, and more.
0xchat v1.3.4-beta brings the message jump feature for replies, search, and paginated message loading. It also introduces encryption for audio and videos in DMs/private groups before uploading, support for custom Blossom servers, and the ability to preload group messages before joining.
Coracle v0.4.11 is a minor release that introduces NIP-55 (Amber) support for the Android client.
ONOSENDAI is an experimental Nostr client that visualizes the protocol in 3D space. It aims to be the reference implementation of a cyberspace protocol, powered by Bitcoin and Nostr.
- Try it at: https://www.onosendai.tech/.
Nostrmo v2.9.1, a Flutter Nostr client for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web, and Linux, comes with a bunch of fixes and improvements.
Yana v0.15.2 is a minor bugfix release that fixes crashing caused by a missing background_service.
Comet Notes is a note-taking app for Nostr users, available on Linux and macOS.
Corny Chat v2024.09, an open-source audio space built on Jam that integrates Nostr and Lightning, now supports file uploads, recurring scheduled events, kind1 notes, and more.
HiveTalk v0.0.3 is the latest release of the free and open-source Nostr and Lightning-enabled browser-based app for real-time video calls.

zap.store CLI v0.1.0 now allows developers to pass icons and images for their apps and supports uploading larger APKs.
NostrSMS.com is a fun project that allows users to make Nostr posts by sending SMS messages.
Pollerama is a nostr-based polls client for anonymous poll creation and responses, with spam reduction using contact lists and proof-of-work requirement.
algia v0.0.83, a Nostr CLI client written in Go, has been released.
gitworkshop.dev is a web client for collaborating on issues and code proposals for git repositories via Nostr.
Dart Nostr Development Kit v0.1.1 has been released.
Amber v2.0.4, a Nostr event signer for Android, is now available.
- NOTE: If you are updating from version 1.3.7 or lower you will need to first backup your accounts, uninstall the old version and install the new version.
Citrine v0.5.1 updates dependencies and introduces error logging when attempting to stop or start the server.
- "If you are coming from version 0.4.4 or lower you will need to first export the database, uninstall the app and install the new version," notes the developer.
Search Relay is a NIP-50 full text search relay using Elasticsearch as backend.
pitiunited has published a PPE Relay, a paid relay that accepts notes on a pay-per-event basis.
Ghost Relay is a new Nostr relay implementation for ephemeral events. "It deletes events right after they have been 'queried' by a user. Useful for very specific applications where no traces are desired," said the developer.
Invincible Privacy Group, a project dedicated to funding Bitcoin privacy development, removed pools feature.
Amir Taaki introduced DarkIRC - an anonymous P2P chat 'without identities and message links.' Check it out here.
Arti v1.2.8 adds numerous new features for onion service key management and continues backend development for memory quota support, relay support, and the RPC subsystem.
GrapheneOS v2024092900 has been released.

Guides and research

The Satoshi Nakamoto Institute published an update on what has been added to the website in August and September.
Waxwing shared a 4-minute long demo video on how to verify a 'private proof of assets' using a desktop app.
Bitcoin Optech #323 announced a planned btcd security disclosure.