Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #220
This week’s newsletter describes a proposal for new opt-in transaction relay rules and summarizes research into helping LN channels stay balanced. Also included are our regular sections listing new software releases and release candidates plus notable changes to popular Bitcoin infrastructure projects.
Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #219
This week’s newsletter describes a proposal to allow LN nodes to advertise capacity-dependent feerates and announces a software fork of Bitcoin Core focused on testing major protocol changes on signet. Also included are our regular sections with summaries of popular questions and answers from the Bitcoin Stack Exchange, announcements of new releases and release candidates, and descriptions of notable changes to popular Bitcoin infrastructure software.
Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #218
This week’s newsletter summarizes a discussion about using SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT to emulate aspects of drivechains. Also included are our regular sections describing recent changes to services, client software, and popular Bitcoin infrastructure software.
Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #217
This week’s newsletter includes our regular section with the summary of a Bitcoin Core PR Review Club meeting, a list of new software releases and release candidates, and summaries of notable changes to popular Bitcoin infrastructure projects.

Newsletters

Releases

project release date
lib-ledger-core 4.4.1

What's Changed

Full Changelog: https://github.com/LedgerHQ/lib-ledger-core/compare/4.4.0...4.4.1

2022-11-10
btcd v0.23.3

Verifying the Release

In order to verify the release, you'll need to have gpg or gpg2 installed on your system. Once you've obtained a copy (and hopefully verified that as well), you'll first need to import the keys that have signed this release if you haven't done so already:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/master/scripts/keys/guggero.asc | gpg --import

Once you have the required PGP keys, you can verify the release (assuming manifest-guggero-v0.23.3.sig and manifest-v0.23.3.txt are in the current directory) with:

gpg --verify manifest-guggero-v0.23.3.sig manifest-v0.23.3.txt

You should see the following if the verification was successful:

gpg: Signature made Di 01 Nov 2022 14:00:20 CET
gpg:                using RSA key F4FC70F07310028424EFC20A8E4256593F177720
gpg: Good signature from &#34;Oliver Gugger <gugger@gmail.com>&#34; [ultimate]

That will verify the signature of the manifest file, which ensures integrity and authenticity of the archive you've downloaded locally containing the binaries. Next, depending on your operating system, you should then re-compute the sha256 hash of the archive with shasum -a 256 <filename>, compare it with the corresponding one in the manifest file, and ensure they match exactly.

What's Changed

New Contributors

Full Changelog: https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd/compare/v0.23.2...v0.23.3/gugger@gmail.com

2022-11-01
lnd v0.14.5-beta

This release is a back port of the second chain synchronization bug fix to the v0.14.x-beta series.

Database Migrations

This release contains no database migrations.

Verifying the Release

In order to verify the release, you'll need to have gpg or gpg2 installed on your system. Once you've obtained a copy (and hopefully verified that as well), you'll first need to import the keys that have signed this release if you haven't done so already:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/master/scripts/keys/guggero.asc | gpg --import

Once you have the required PGP keys, you can verify the release (assuming manifest-guggero-v0.14.5-beta.sig and manifest-v0.14.5-beta.txt are in the current directory) with:

gpg --verify manifest-guggero-v0.14.5-beta.sig manifest-v0.14.5-beta.txt

You should see the following if the verification was successful:

gpg: Signature made Di 01 Nov 2022 14:00:20 CET
gpg:                using RSA key F4FC70F07310028424EFC20A8E4256593F177720
gpg: Good signature from &#34;Oliver Gugger <gugger@gmail.com>&#34; [ultimate]

That will verify the signature of the manifest file, which ensures integrity and authenticity of the archive you've downloaded locally containing the binaries. Next, depending on your operating system, you should then re-compute the sha256 hash of the archive with shasum -a 256 <filename>, compare it with the corresponding one in the manifest file, and ensure they match exactly.

Verifying the Release Timestamp

From this new version onwards, in addition time-stamping the git tag with OpenTimeStamps, we'll also now timestamp the manifest file along with its signature. Two new files are now included along with the rest of our release artifacts: manifest-guggero-v0.14.5-beta.txt.asc.ots.

Assuming you have the opentimestamps client installed locally, the timestamps can be verified with the following commands:

ots verify manifest-guggero-v0.14.5-beta.sig.ots -f manifest-guggero-v0.14.5-beta.sig

Alternatively, the open timestamps website can be used to verify timestamps if one doesn't have a bitcoind instance accessible locally.

These timestamps should give users confidence in the integrity of this release even after the key that signed the release expires.

Verifying the Release Binaries

Our release binaries are fully reproducible. Third parties are able to verify that the release binaries were produced properly without having to trust the release manager(s). See our reproducible builds guide for how this can be achieved. The release binaries are compiled with go1.17.3, which is required by verifiers to arrive at the same ones. They include the following build tags: autopilotrpc, signrpc, walletrpc, chainrpc, invoicesrpc, routerrpc, watchtowerrpc and monitoring. Note that these are already included in the release script, so they do not need to be provided.

The make release command can be used to ensure one rebuilds with all the same flags used for the release. If one wishes to build for only a single platform, then make release sys=<os-arch> tag=<tag> can be used.

Finally, you can also verify the tag itself with the following command:

$ git verify-tag v0.14.5-beta
gpg: Signature made Di 01 Nov 2022 13:45:40 CET
gpg:                using RSA key F4FC70F07310028424EFC20A8E4256593F177720
gpg: Good signature from &#34;Oliver Gugger <gugger@gmail.com>&#34;

Verifying the Docker Images

To verify the lnd and lncli binaries inside the docker images against the signed, reproducible release binaries, there is a verification script in the image that can be called (before starting the container for example):

$ docker run --rm --entrypoint=&#34;&#34; lightninglabs/lnd:v0.14.5-beta /verify-install.sh v0.14.5-beta
$ OK=$?
$ if [ &#34;$OK&#34; -ne &#34;0&#34; ]; then echo &#34;Verification failed!&#34;; exit 1; done
$ docker run lightninglabs/lnd [command-line options]

Building the Contained Release

Users are able to rebuild the target release themselves without having to fetch any of the dependencies. In order to do so, assuming that vendor.tar.gz and lnd-source-v0.14.5-beta.tar.gz are in the current directory, follow these steps:

tar -xvzf vendor.tar.gz
tar -xvzf lnd-source-v0.14.5-beta.tar.gz
GO111MODULE=on go install -v -mod=vendor -ldflags &#34;-X github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/build.Commit=v0.14.5-beta&#34; ./cmd/lnd
GO111MODULE=on go install -v -mod=vendor -ldflags &#34;-X github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/build.Commit=v0.14.5-beta&#34; ./cmd/lncli

The -mod=vendor flag tells the go build command that it doesn't need to fetch the dependencies, and instead, they're all enclosed in the local vendor directory.

Additionally, it's now possible to use the enclosed release.sh script to bundle a release for a specific system like so:

make release sys=&#34;linux-arm64 darwin-amd64&#34;

⚡️⚡️⚡️ OK, now to the rest of the release notes! ⚡️⚡️⚡️

Release Notes

Contributors (Alphabetical Order)

  • Konstantin Nick

/gugger@gmail.com/gugger@gmail.com

2022-11-01
lnd v0.15.4-beta

This is an emergency hot fix release to fix a bug that can cause lnd nodes to be unable to parse certain transactions that have a very large number of witness inputs.

This release contains no major features, and is instead just a hotfix applied on top of v0.15.3.

Verifying the Release

In order to verify the release, you'll need to have gpg or gpg2 installed on your system. Once you've obtained a copy (and hopefully verified that as well), you'll first need to import the keys that have signed this release if you haven't done so already:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/master/scripts/keys/guggero.asc | gpg --import

Once you have the required PGP keys, you can verify the release (assuming manifest-guggero-v0.15.4-beta.sig and manifest-v0.15.4-beta.txt are in the current directory) with:

gpg --verify manifest-guggero-v0.15.4-beta.sig manifest-v0.15.4-beta.txt

You should see the following if the verification was successful:

gpg: Signature made Di 01 Nov 2022 14:00:20 CET
gpg:                using RSA key F4FC70F07310028424EFC20A8E4256593F177720
gpg: Good signature from &#34;Oliver Gugger <gugger@gmail.com>&#34; [ultimate]

That will verify the signature of the manifest file, which ensures integrity and authenticity of the archive you've downloaded locally containing the binaries. Next, depending on your operating system, you should then re-compute the sha256 hash of the archive with shasum -a 256 <filename>, compare it with the corresponding one in the manifest file, and ensure they match exactly.

Verifying the Release Timestamp

From this new version onwards, in addition time-stamping the git tag with OpenTimeStamps, we'll also now timestamp the manifest file along with its signature. Two new files are now included along with the rest of our release artifacts: manifest-guggero-v0.15.4-beta.txt.asc.ots.

Assuming you have the opentimestamps client installed locally, the timestamps can be verified with the following commands:

ots verify manifest-guggero-v0.15.4-beta.sig.ots -f manifest-guggero-v0.15.4-beta.sig

Alternatively, the open timestamps website can be used to verify timestamps if one doesn't have a bitcoind instance accessible locally.

These timestamps should give users confidence in the integrity of this release even after the key that signed the release expires.

Verifying the Release Binaries

Our release binaries are fully reproducible. Third parties are able to verify that the release binaries were produced properly without having to trust the release manager(s). See our reproducible builds guide for how this can be achieved. The release binaries are compiled with go1.18.2, which is required by verifiers to arrive at the same ones. They include the following build tags: autopilotrpc, signrpc, walletrpc, chainrpc, invoicesrpc, neutrinorpc, routerrpc, watchtowerrpc, monitoring, peersrpc, kvdb_postrgres, and kvdb_etcd. Note that these are already included in the release script, so they do not need to be provided.

The make release command can be used to ensure one rebuilds with all the same flags used for the release. If one wishes to build for only a single platform, then make release sys=<os-arch> tag=<tag> can be used.

Finally, you can also verify the tag itself with the following command:

$ git verify-tag v0.15.4-beta
gpg: Signature made Di 01 Nov 2022 13:45:40 CET
gpg:                using RSA key F4FC70F07310028424EFC20A8E4256593F177720
gpg: Good signature from &#34;Oliver Gugger <gugger@gmail.com>&#34;

Verifying the Docker Images

To verify the lnd and lncli binaries inside the docker images against the signed, reproducible release binaries, there is a verification script in the image that can be called (before starting the container for example):

$ docker run --rm --entrypoint=&#34;&#34; lightninglabs/lnd:v0.15.4-beta /verify-install.sh v0.15.4-beta
$ OK=$?
$ if [ &#34;$OK&#34; -ne &#34;0&#34; ]; then echo &#34;Verification failed!&#34;; exit 1; done
$ docker run lightninglabs/lnd [command-line options]

Building the Contained Release

Users are able to rebuild the target release themselves without having to fetch any of the dependencies. In order to do so, assuming that vendor.tar.gz and lnd-source-v0.15.4-beta.tar.gz are in the current directory, follow these steps:

tar -xvzf vendor.tar.gz
tar -xvzf lnd-source-v0.15.4-beta.tar.gz
GO111MODULE=on go install -v -mod=vendor -ldflags &#34;-X github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/build.Commit=v0.15.4-beta&#34; ./cmd/lnd
GO111MODULE=on go install -v -mod=vendor -ldflags &#34;-X github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/build.Commit=v0.15.4-beta&#34; ./cmd/lncli

The -mod=vendor flag tells the go build command that it doesn't need to fetch the dependencies, and instead, they're all enclosed in the local vendor directory.

Additionally, it's now possible to use the enclosed release.sh script to bundle a release for a specific system like so:

make release sys=&#34;linux-arm64 darwin-amd64&#34;

⚡️⚡️⚡️ OK, now to the rest of the release notes! ⚡️⚡️⚡️

Release Notes

https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/v0-15-4-branch/docs/release-notes/release-notes-0.15.4.md /gugger@gmail.com/gugger@gmail.com

2022-11-01

RFC

type rfc # title date status
bip X Create stale.yml 2022-11-14 New PR
bip bip-0341 BIP341: add aux_rand argument to taproot_sign_key 2022-11-14 Update
bip bip-0330 BIP330: drop redundant booleans from the sendtxrcncl message 2022-11-14 Merged
bip bip-0341 BIP341: fix int conversion in taproot_tweak_pubkey 2022-11-13 Update
bip bip-0341 BIP 341: allow taproot_sign_key with no script tree 2022-11-10 Update
bip bip-0341 BIP 341: Fix taproot_tweak_pubkey 2022-11-10 Update
bip bip-0324 Add BIP324: v2 P2P Transport Protocol 2022-11-07 Update
bip bip-0001 Change BIP1 to status Active 2022-11-06 Merged
bip bip-0331 BIP 331: Ancestor Package Relay 2022-11-04 Update
bip X Add BIP MuSig2 2022-11-03 Update
bip bip-0322 Revert "Fix incorrect signature test vectors in BIP322" 2022-11-03 Closed
bip bip-0322 Fix incorrect signature test vectors in BIP322 2022-11-03 Merged
bip bip-0300 Update bip-0300.mediawiki with consistent use of "ACK-counter" term 2022-11-03 Merged
bolt X Offers 2022-11-11 Update
bolt X Splice draft 2022-11-10 Update
bolt X Allow nodes to overshoot the MPP `total_msat` when paying 2022-11-09 Merged
bolt X Use onion amount in MPP set calculation 2022-11-09 Update
bolt X Lightning Specification Meeting 2022/11/07 2022-11-09 Update
bolt X BOLT#02: change SHOULD to MUST for fee-range mismatch 2022-11-08 Update
bolt X interactive-tx: Add dual-funding flow, using the interactive tx protocol (feature 28/29) 2022-11-08 Update
bolt X Allow nodes to overshoot final htlc amount and expiry 2022-11-08 Merged
bolt X Add option to sign commitments at various feerates (FEAT 32/33) 2022-11-07 Update
bolt X minor grammar and format fixes 2022-11-07 Closed
bolt X Trampoline onion format (Feature 56/57) 2022-11-03 Update
bolt X Unofficial gossip tlv records using reserved ids 2022-11-02 Update
bolt X TLV failure message and recommended length to 1024 2022-11-02 Update
bolt X Lightning Specification Meeting 2022/10/24 2022-11-02 Closed
slip X Reference to non-existing AES section 2022-11-12 New Issue
slip X add taf eco chain 2022-11-11 Merged
slip X feat: adding exosama network 2022-11-09 Merged
slip slip-0044 New token added to slip-0044.md 2022-11-08 Merged
slip X Add Loyal 2022-11-08 Merged
slip slip-0173 Add Dyson Protocol to slip 0173 2022-11-08 Merged
slip slip-0011 Fix SLIP-0011 link 2022-11-08 Merged
slip X Add ADON (638) 2022-11-07 Merged
slip X Add Chain4Energy to slip. 2022-11-01 Merged
slip X Adding Peer Meta Coin in 718 (previously unreserved) 2022-11-01 Merged