Quantum Race — Last Week in Bitcoin (Apr 06 - 12)
New proposals for a post-quantum world...
Hi Insiders. This is Tuma, open-source reporter from the Insider Edition.
This week’s update features PR1870 in CDK, which aims to integrate on-chain payments in the Cashu implementation using the Bitcoin Development Kit as a backend.
We also cover the new MIP-06 specification for the Marmot Protocol, which aims to standardize how to leverage the secure messaging protocol on different devices using the same Nostr identity.
We also discuss two new post-quantum proposal, one by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy, and another by Lightning Labs CTO Olaoluwa Osuntokun.
Highlights from the bitcoin developer ecosystem
I spent 10+ hours in open-source developer calls in the Bitcoin ecosystem last week. Here is what caught my eye:
PR1870 in Cashu Development Kit is integrating on-chain payments in the ecash protocol.
During the weekly call, on Wednesday 8th, CDK developers discussed the ongoing effort to integrate on-chain payments in the ecash protocol. The draft PR1870 was opened the day after, on Thursday 9th.
This new feature would allow Cashu mints to mint and melt quotes through on-chain transactions, expanding the number of supported payment methods.
As an on-chain backend, PR1870 leverages the Bitcoin Development Kit (BDK), which provides all the needed functionalities to perform payments, such as receiving and sending, BIP84 key derivations, blockchain synching through Bitcoin Core and Esplora, and confirmations tracking.
MIP-06 is the new specification for the Marmot protocol to allow users to share the same identity on multiple devices.
During the monthly call, on Tuesday 7th, Marmot developers discussed the new Marmot Improvement Proposal (MIP) which aims to add support for using the same Nostr identity on multiple devices.
According to MIP-06, each device would generate its own key material, while sharing the same public key in their basic MLS identity information. This would allow clients to recognize each device key as belonging to the same user.
Each device would maintain its own independent MLS gorup state and message history, since no shared state is possible. Moreover, message decryption would happen separately and independently on each device.
A BIPs Update
In the last days there was some movement in the BIP repository. Specifically, one new BIP has been published by BIP maintainer Murchandamus.
Published BIPs
A list of recently published BIPs
BIP376: Spending Silent Payment Outputs with PSBTs
Authors: Nymius
Published On: Apr 11th, 2026
Layer: Applications
BIP376, proposes adding new per-input fields in Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs) v2, described in BIP370, to allow for silent payment outputs spending.
While BIP375 already specifies how to create outputs locked with silent payments in PSBTs, a specification on how to unlock them is still not available. The BIP, proposed by BDK contributor Nymius, closes this gap in the specifications.
Other News from the Bitcoin World
Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Transactions Without Softforks: StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy recently shared his latest work on a qunatum-safe scheme that does not require any softfork to the Bitcoin protocol to work. His research builds on a previous proposal by BitVM creator Robin Linus called Binohash, a new, collision-resistant hash function for Bitcoin Script.
A zk-STARK Escape Hatch for BIP-32 Wallets: Lightning Labs CTO Olaoluwa Osuntokun presented a new proof-of-concept for a method to prove ownership on funds using zero-knowledge proof. In case of an emergency post-quantum softfork, many funds may remain locked in non-secure wallets. This scheme would allow users to prove the ownership of a certain address by demonstrating knowledge of a BIP32 master seed, without revealing it.