Good Morning, Bitcoin - Tuesday, November 5th, 2024

GM. Remember, remember, the 5th of November...

What's happening

• New Bitcoin mining difficulty all-time high. Bitcoin mining difficulty has adjusted to a record 101.65T, a 6.24% increase from the previous difficulty epoch. The network's hashrate (7-day SMA) was at a record 741 EH/s on November 3rd.

• Deutsche Telekom launches Bitcoin mining pilot. Europe's leading telecommunications provider is launching a Bitcoin mining pilot called 'Digital Monetary Photosynthesis', developed by Deutsche Telekom’s subsidiary MMS in collaboration with Bankhaus Metzler. The project aims to provide data for stabilizing Germany's energy grids.
• Strategic Bitcoin Reserve for the United States report. The Bitcoin Policy Institute published a 53-page report endorsing Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) for the United States. It highlights a number of benefits of such policy, including economic and monetary stability, advantages in the geopolitical arena, support for energy and climate-friendly development, financial inclusion, and human rights.

• EU Going Dark: New surveillance package? Former Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer reports that the European Commission and the Council of the European Union are preparing a new, controversial, and non-transparent digital surveillance package. This plan reportedly includes reinstating and expanding the retention of citizens’ communications data and proposals to weaken data encryption on all connected devices. The Commission is also preparing impact assessments and an implementation plan behind closed doors.

"The plan is still widely unknown among citizens, journalists and politicians, even though we hold the documents in our hands and the extent of the plans is frightening. A number of questions remain unanswered," writes the activist.

• First UK pension fund invests directly in bitcoin. British pension specialist Cartwright has guided the UK's first pension fund to invest in bitcoin, allocating 3% of the unnamed fund's assets directly to bitcoin instead of using a proxy like a spot ETF. Cartwright is also introducing a Bitcoin Employee Benefits scheme, allowing employers to pay bitcoin directly into staff wallets.
• Semler Scientific adds 47 BTC in Q3. Medical device company Semler Scientific disclosed additional bitcoin purchases in its Q3 earnings report. The company now holds 1058 BTC purchased for approximately $71 million.
• OpenSats issued the eighth wave of Nostr grants. The latest grantees include Formstr, Groups, Coop, Nostrability, and the NIP-44 Libraries audit.
• Bitshala's Programming Bitcoin Cohort kicks off on November 8th. Guided by Jimmy Song's Programming Bitcoin, this cohort is set to explore cryptography, Bitcoin scripting, and transaction mechanics, enhancing programmer intuition for Bitcoin protocols. Register here.
• Bitcoin Alive 2025 conference. Australia's premier Bitcoin-only conference is set to take place in Sydney on March 8, 2025. Tickets are available here.

Use the tools

• libsecp256k1 v0.6.0 brings the much anticipated musig module, adds a significantly more robust method to clear secrets from the stack, and removes the unused secp256k1_scratch_space functions.
• Bitcoin Core v27.2 has been released. It includes various bug fixes and performance improvements, as well as updated translations.
• Stacker.news postpones non-custodial transition. "We knew it would rain in October, but it ended up pouring and we missed the deadline. The switch will still happen, guaranteed. We'll give a two week [™] warning once the changes are done this time around," said k00b.
  • Other stacker.news updates include encrypted device sync for syncing spending wallet credentials between devices, and the ability to attach a Blink wallet for receiving zaps.
• Zeus wallet v0.9.2 beta1 is now available for testing. It brings the ability to export transaction history to spreadsheets, BIP-353 and BOLT 12 improvements, a 'Spooky theme', and few other enhancements.
• Boltz BTCPay plugin v2.0.3 re-enables pull payments along with some other minor fixes. It requires BTCPay Server version 2.0.1 to work.
• Boltz Backend v3.8.0 brings support for a new CLN hold invoice plugin rewritten from scratch with a focus on performance, the ability to renegotiate amounts for Chain Swap in case they are over or underpaid, enables the creation of Chain Swaps without an amount, allows for paying BOLT 12 invoices in submarine swaps, and introduces an API endpoint for fetching invoices for offers.
• Nigiri v0.5.2, a command line tool for spinning ready-to-use Bitcoin regtest development environment with a Bitcoin daemon, an Electrum Rust server, an Esplora block explorer web interface, and a Liquid daemon, has been released.
• NDK v2.10.5 includes a reconnection bug fix.
• Pokey v0.0.6-alpha, a 'pull notification' client for Nostr events, now displays more info on zaps, includes a relay list manager and better relay authorization, and fixes notification dates and issues with Amber.
• Citrine v0.5.5, a local Nostr relay for Android devices, limits replaceable event storage to 1, and temporarily removes the restore contacts feature.
• lnwCash now lets its users pay Lightning invoices by melting users' ecash into bitcoin.

• bullishNuts v0.2.25 implements a QR code scanner.
• Podcaster-boost-dashboard lets you convert Core Lightning's listinvoices output to a podcasting 2.0 dashboard.

• Fully Noded - Server v0.0.0.2-alpha, a one-click Bitcoin Core, Core Lightning, and JoinMarket server to connect to Fully Noded apps, is another testing release that fixes a crash when clicking "Install Bitcoin Core."
• GrapheneOS v2024110400 is an early November security update release for an open-source, privacy, and security-focused mobile operating system.

Other stuff

• BTCPay Server released "PAID IN BITCOIN," a full feature film showcasing the setup of Bitcoin payments during the Bitcoin Conference 2024 in Nashville.

• Charlene Fadirepo published "The Bitcoin Leap"—a book documenting how Bitcoin is transforming Africa.
• 'Verifiably Buy Solutions to NP Problems with Bitcoin" is the latest blog post by Conduition.

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