Last Week in Bitcoin (Dec 1 - 7)
Highlights from the bitcoin developer ecosystem...
Hi Insiders. This is Tuma, open-source reporter from the Insider Edition. I spent 10+ hours in open-source developer calls in the Bitcoin ecosystem last week. Here is what caught my eye:
MIP-05 is adding privacy-preserving specifications for push notifications to the Marmot protocol.
During the monthly update call, on Tuesday 2nd, MDK contributors presented MIP-05, the new Marmot Implementation Proposal that lays out the specifications for private push notifications. The proposal is still under active discussion and more reviews from the community are welcome.
The need for private push notifications comes from the fact that for timely deliver of message alerts, notifications has to pass through Apple and Google’s services, leaking metadata and content to the companies’ servers. Of course, this is not ideal for privacy-conscious users.
MIP-05 defines a privacy-preserving approach, which allows users to hide not only the content of the message to Apple and Google’s service, but also sensitive metadata, such as the sender and recipient’s Nostr identity, group membership, or any relationship between the device and the user’s Nostr identity. Moreover, privacy measures are also taken to prevent the notification server and Nostr relays to acquire sensitive information.
IS108 in Stratum sv2-apps repository is reporting an issue with the new
bitcoin_core_sv2crate, possibly related to Bitcoin Core new mining IPC interface.During the weekly call, on Tuesday 2nd, Stratum V2 developers discussed an issue with the new
bitcoin_core_sv2crate, which seems to be linked to the new Bitcoin Core IPC interface, recently released in v30.The issue comes from the fact the the
crateNewBlock()interface function returns a new template even if the Initial Block Download (IBD) has not terminated yet, making a miner work on a block which is guaranteed to be stale.To address this, Stratum V2 developer plebhash opened a feature request on the Bitcoin Core repository,on IS33994, calling for the
crateNewBlock()to avoid returning a template before IBD is completed. The discussion is still ongoing, with Stratum and Core developers exchanging ideas on the best approach to follow.
IS7892 of Fedimint is keeping track of all the features being added to the new Gateway UI.
During the weekly call, on Monday 1st, Fedimint developers discussed the recent features implemented for the Gateway UI, a user interface that allows operators to easily manage their gateway Lightning nodes. All the developments are being tracked in IS7892.
The new UI simplifies management for gateway administrators. Notably, it allows to open/close LN channels, sending/receiving on-chain transactions from/to the Lightning node, connect to new federations and visualize status information, such as payment summary and connection to Bitcoin node.
There are still more features on the developers’ to-do list. For example, the possibility to generate and pay Bolt11 and Bolt12 invoices, show the list of transactions of the Lighting node and tools for ecash management.
Looking for an opportunity to join up with some bitcoin devs in person? Join us in Taipei this December 15-17 to talk about standing sovereign with Bitcoin.