Good Morning, Bitcoin - Monday, September 16th, 2024

GM. It is Monday, September 16th, and the second half of September is already upon us. This issue is packed with many goodies, including some brand new releases and other interesting announcements from last week. We wish we could write a detailed post for each update, but we all have to make the best of what we have. Enjoy!

What's happening

• Vinteum establishes Bitcoin Developer launchpad in Brazil. This free program aims to train and empower Brazilian developers who are working on open-source Bitcoin and Lightning Network projects. Participants will receive mentorship, attend in-person sessions in São Paulo, and present at the bitcoin++developer conference from February 19-24, 2025, in Florianópolis. Registration is open until October 2.
• Rust for Bitcoiners course is now available for free at BTCdemy. It includes recorded lectures, visual diagrams, quizzes, and practice challenges to help you master the fundamentals of Rust. GitHub link is available here.
• SimpleX Chat is now blocked in Russia. The project team said it might introduce a solution sometime this week.

• MicroStrategy adds 18,300 BTC to its coffers. The company made yet another purchase for approximately $1.1 billion, bringing its total holdings to 244,800 BTC, acquired for $9.45 billion. At current prices, MicroStrategy's Bitcoin trove is worth over $14 billion.
• Bitcoin mining facility shutdown raises town residents' energy bills by 20% in Norway. Kryptovault's Bitcoin mining facility in Stokmarknes, Norway, recently closed due to noise complaints. The Hadsel municipality didn't renew the operating permit, and the mine's closure impacted local energy company Noranett, which lost its largest customer. To offset this loss, Noranett raised electricity prices, causing residents to face a 20% increase next month.
• Bitfarms accelerates 2.2 EH/s hosting agreement with Stronghold. "Bitfarms will be accelerating the deployment of 10,000 Bitmain T21 miners, originally scheduled to come online at the Company’s Yguazu, Paraguay site in December 2024, to Stronghold’s Panther Creek site. Energization is anticipated in October 2024 and will bring 2.2 EH/s online immediately," the company said in a press release.
• Asian exchange HTX to integrate Lightning Network. The platform announced strategic partnership with IBEX to enable faster transaction and lower fees for its customers.
• US urges Nigeria to free imprisoned Binance employee, reports The New York Times. Tigran Gambaryan visited Nigeria in February to discuss Binance's local operations. Nigerian authorities accused Binance of harming their economy by enabling users to exchange local currency, the naira, thus causing its collapse. They then charged Gambaryan and Binance with tax evasion and money laundering.
• ShopinBit is expanding to Switzerland. The largest European Bitcoin e-commerce platform, with over 200,000 products, said it will launch in Switzerland in less than 30 days. Swiss users can sign up for local updates here.
• Nostrdam is set to take place on October 8, a day before Bitcoin Amsterdam 2024. Get your tickets here. Register for a hackathon here.

Use the tools

• Unchained launched donor-advised funds (DAF) in partnership with University Impact. A donor-advised fund is bitcoin-native charitable giving vehicle that enables one to make a contribution, receive an immediate tax deduction, and then recommend grants to charitable organizations over time.
  • Learn more about Unchained DAF's here.
• Selfie Records by Synonym. Selfie Records is an extension to the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 353, expanding the concept of DNS-based resolution of payment instructions to a broader application of identity and data verification through DNS TXT records.
• Phoenix Android v2.3.9 and iOS v2.3.4 releases address a few UI issues, including a bug that prevented scanning QR codes for Lightning addresses when they used a URI prefix.
• Fulcrum v1.11.1 is a minor update that adds support for testnet4.
• Super Testnet introduced Brick Wallet, a basic web wallet that acts as a frontend for Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) backends. Try it out here.

• Dana Wallet v0.1.0-alpha is the first public release of Dana Wallet. It is a mobile wallet for accepting Bitcoin donations. It uses silent payments to receive donations while preserving on-chain privacy. This initial release supports Bitcoin mainnet, testnet3, and signet.
• Alby Hub v1.8.0 adds the Alby Go app to the Alby Hub App Store. The Hub has also received some mobile UI improvements and updated copy in the Friends & Family app.
• Bull Bitcoin Mobile v0.3.2 brings more stable chain swaps, better handling of refunds, and various bug fixes and optimizations.
• Mercury Layer v0.2.1 adds a terms and conditions agreement for token invoice generation and now displays the server version number in Explorer and Info/Config.
• BoardWalk Cash v0.3.1 introduces ecash gifts or eGifts. Each eGift has a unique ecash value and can be shared on any social media or messaging platform.

• BDK v1.0.0-beta.4 fixes transaction creation to not skip unused addresses, adds a function for sorting wallet transactions, and includes an option to change the default BNB fallback coin selection.
• Boltz Client v2.1.6 includes a fix for a race condition that can occur when creating multiple swaps at once.
• LN Exchange launched phase 2 of closed early access testing. Only whitelisted npubs can actually try it but you can join the dev chat here.
• SatShoot is creating unstoppable freelance economy on Nostr. Get paid and hire in bitcoin (on Lighting and soon ecash).
• ShockWallet v0.0.9-beta is now available on Android.

New in ShockWallet and Lightning Pub, NIP-69 Nostr Offer STRings

A more performant, private, trustless, and decentralized replacement for LNURL and Bolt12 pic.twitter.com/w2S341wPXL

— Justin (shocknet)⚡ (@shocknet_justin) September 10, 2024

• NLightning v0.2.2, an implementation of the Lightning Network protocol in C#, adds support for WebAssembly and native crypto tests.
• Mutation Core is a mutation testing tool for Bitcoin Core.
• stacker.news now supports account switching, anon edits, and video uploads.
• Doug Hoyte released v1.0.1 of strfry, a popular Nostr relay implementation. Highlights include negentropy protocol 1, better error messages for users and operators, updated documentation, and numerous optimizations. Future updates will include strfry proxy to enable intelligent reverse proxying for the Nostr protocol, as well as archival mode.
• Amber v2.0.1 has been released with new developer sign keys, meaning that to use this version you will need to first backup your accounts, uninstall the old version and install the new version.
• zap.store CLI v0.0.5 comes with improvements around app publishing to make it easier for developers to self-sign their releases.
• BraiinsOS v24.08.1 brings refined paused logic and a critical bug fix for safer and more stable miner shutdowns.
• Liana Wallet v7.0rc1 is now available for testing.
• Tor Browser v14.0a5 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and distribution directory.
• Peer-to-peer chat app Keet v3.10.0 is now out on desktop and mobile.

Other stuff

• Good First Issues is a tool for simplifying contributing to vetted Free Open Source Software (FOSS) Bitcoin projects. It collects beginner-friendly issues labeled as Bug, Help Wanted, and Good First Issues, so new developers can find their way in Bitcoin.
• BTC Sessions published a comprehensive tutorial for running Alby Hub.
• Burak introduced NOIST: a non-interactive, single-round t-of-n threshold signing scheme. Learn more about it in a blog post, or watch the introductory video here.

• What did we miss? DM us on Nostr.
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