diff --git a/_includes/references.md b/_includes/references.md
index dee45d03cc..83fd643357 100644
--- a/_includes/references.md
+++ b/_includes/references.md
@@ -10,8 +10,11 @@
 {% comment %}<!-- BIPs in order lowest to highest -->{% endcomment %}
 [BIP37]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0037.mediawiki
 [BIP70]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawiki
+[BIP150]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0150.mediawiki
+[BIP151]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0151.mediawiki
 [BIP157]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0157.mediawiki
 [BIP158]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0158.mediawiki
+[BIP174]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0174.mediawiki
 
 {% comment %}<!-- old newsletters (variables & links) in date order earliest to latest -->{% endcomment %}
 {% assign news0 = "/en/newsletters/2018/06/08/" %}
@@ -30,6 +33,10 @@
 [newsletter #6]: {{news6}}
 {% assign news7 = "/en/newsletters/2018/08/07/" %}
 [newsletter #7]: {{news7}}
+{% assign news8 = "/en/newsletters/2018/08/14/" %}
+[newsletter #8]: {{news8}}
+{% assign news9 = "/en/newsletters/2018/08/21/" %}
+[newsletter #9]: {{news9}}
 
 {% comment %}
 <!--REQUIRES PERIODIC UPDATE: update rpc_version below to latest
diff --git a/_posts/en/newsletters/2018-08-21-newsletter.md b/_posts/en/newsletters/2018-08-21-newsletter.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7d9f321fdc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/_posts/en/newsletters/2018-08-21-newsletter.md
@@ -0,0 +1,165 @@
+---
+title: 'Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #9'
+permalink: /en/newsletters/2018/08/21/
+name: 2018-08-21-newsletter
+type: newsletter
+layout: newsletter
+lang: en
+---
+This week's newsletter includes a request to help test the next version of Bitcoin Core,
+short descriptions of projects Bitcoin Core contributors are working on,
+and a list of notable merges during the past week.
+
+## Action items
+
+- **Allocate time to test Bitcoin Core 0.17 release candidates:**
+  in the coming days, Bitcoin Core will begin releasing Release
+  Candidates (RCs) for version 0.17.0.  Organizations and individual
+  users planning to use 0.17 are encouraged to test the RCs to ensure
+  that they contain all the features you need and don't have any bugs
+  that would affect your operation.  There are often multiple RCs for a
+  major release such as this, but each RC can theoretically be the last
+  RC, so we encourage you to test as early as possible.
+
+## News
+
+No significant news was posted to the bitcoin-dev or lightning-dev
+mailing list last week, so this week's news focuses on some projects
+discussed during the Bitcoin Core weekly meeting.
+
+The Bitcoin Core project, like most free and open source software
+projects, is organized bottom-up with each contributor working on the
+things they think are important rather than top-down with project
+leaders directing the work, so occasionally---as happened last
+week---developers briefly summarize to each other what they're working
+on for the future.  It's possible some of these initiatives may fail,
+but it's also possible that some will become future parts of Bitcoin
+Core.  Here's a summary of the projects discussed:
+
+- **P2P protocol encryption** being worked on by Jonas Schnelli with
+  a short-term focus on unauthenticated encryption in the [BIP151][]
+  style (but perhaps using a different mechanism than described in that
+  BIP).  Peer authentication (e.g. [BIP150][]) is probably further off
+  as a criticism against it is that the simplest way of implementing it
+  makes it easy to fingerprint particular peers and reduce privacy---so
+  a more advanced mechanism is desired for the cases that need it.
+
+- **Output script descriptors enhancements** being worked on by
+  Pieter Wuille.  The basic idea for this was described in
+  [Newsletter #5][news5 news] but Wuille is investigating adding
+  support for nested and threshold constructions, e.g.: "import `and(xpub/...,or(xpub/...,xpub/...))`
+  into your wallet as watch-only chain for example and get
+  [PSBT][BIP174] to sign for it."  This would make adding hardware
+  wallet support to Bitcoin Core easier.  The support would also be
+  compatible with timelocks and hashlocks for use with LN-compatible
+  wallets (hardware or software).
+
+- **RISC-V support** being worked on by Wladimir van der Laan.  This
+  is a CPU architecture rapidly increasing in popularity as a
+  potential competitor with ARM-based chipsets, especially among
+  hobbyists as the CPU design is open source.  A project of
+  several developers including Van der Laan's is ultimately
+  providing deterministically-generated hashes of Bitcoin Core
+  binaries produced using RISC-V cross-compiling to ensure known
+  problems and backdoors in the prevalent x86_64 chipsets aren't
+  being used to compromise Bitcoin Core binary builds.  Van der Laan
+  had several recent successes and started "probably the first
+  RISC-V bitcoin node in the world" which has already synced part of
+  the chain.
+
+- **Bandwidth-efficient set reconciliation protocol for transactions** 
+  being worked on by Gregory Maxwell, Gleb Naumenko, and Pieter Wuille.
+  This may allow a node that has new transactions in its mempool to tell
+  a peer about those transactions by communicating an amount of data
+  "equal to the expected size of the differences themselves".  This is
+  in comparison to the current protocol where nodes communicate the
+  existence of a transaction by sending a 32 byte hash of it to their
+  peers.  Well-connected nodes can receive or send more than hundred of
+  these notifications for each 224-byte median-sized transaction they
+  process, resulting in significant amount of long-lived nodes'
+  bandwidth being wasted (up to 90% [according][nmnkgl relay] to
+  measurements by Naumenko, although recent improvements in Bitcoin Core
+  may have reduced this figure).  Maxwell is also working on making it
+  possible for a newly-started (or long-disconnected) node to
+  efficiently sync the high feerate part of its mempool from its peers using this same basic
+  mechanism.
+
+- **Dandelion protocol DoS-resistant stem routing** being worked on
+  by Suhas Daftuar.  The [Dandelion protocol][] is expected to make
+  it extremely difficult for an adversary to determine the IP
+  address of any program that creates a Bitcoin transaction (even if
+  they don't use Tor), but the new method of handling unconfirmed
+  transactions privately for a time during the "stem" phase has to
+  be secured against attacks that could waste node bandwidth and
+  memory.
+
+For additional details, please see the [conversation log][2018-08-16
+meeting log].
+
+## Notable commits
+
+*Notable commits this week in [Bitcoin Core][core commits], [LND][lnd
+commits], and [C-lightning][cl commits].*
+
+{% comment %}<!-- IMO, c-lightning only had 6 commits this week, mostly
+minor doc updates, so no news for them.  I'm still leaving them
+mentioned above for easy copy/paste next week. -harding -->{% endcomment %}
+
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="core commits"
+  repo="bitcoin/bitcoin"
+  start="1b04b55f2d22078ca79cd38fc1078e15fa9cbe94"
+  end="df660aa7717a6f4784e90535a13a95d82244565a"
+%}
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="lnd commits"
+  repo="lightningnetwork/lnd"
+  start="6989316b11c51922b4c6ae3507ac06680ec530b9"
+  end="3f5ec993300e38369110706ac83301b8875500d6"
+%}
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="cl commits"
+  repo="ElementsProject/lightning"
+  start="a97955845ff43d4780b33a7301695db33823c57c"
+  end="80a875a9a54e26c2ea4c90aee8fe606ddcc27c55"
+%}
+
+- Bitcoin Core 0.17 branched: this allows developers to focus on
+  ensuring stability, translation completeness, and other release
+  features on that branch while development of new features continues on
+  the master branch.  This Notable Commits section only focuses on the
+  master development branch of each project, so commits mentioned from
+  this point forward are much less likely to be included in the 0.17
+  version of Bitcoin Core and should not be expected before the 0.18
+  version.
+
+- [Bitcoin Core #13917][] and [Bitcoin Core #13960][] improve the
+  [BIP174][] Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transaction (PBST) handling in
+  ambiguous situations.
+
+- [Bitcoin Core #11526][] makes it much easier to build Bitcoin Core
+  with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017, including being able to use the Visual
+  Studio debugger.
+
+- [Bitcoin Core #13918][] provides the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th
+  percentile feerates for a historic block with the `getblockstats` RPC
+  introduced to the master development branch a couple months ago.
+
+- [LND #1693][] allows LND's autopilot funding mechanism to optionally
+  use its own unconfirmed change outputs for funding transactions,
+  allowing it to potentially open multiple channels in the next block.
+
+    Note: this was only the most notable of several minor (but useful)
+    improvements to the autopilot feature merged this week.
+
+- [LND #1460][] the payinvoice and sendpayment commands now require
+  extra confirmation, although this can be bypassed with the `--force`
+  or `-f` parameter.
+
+{% include references.md %}
+{% include linkers/issues.md issues="13917,11526,13918,1693,1460,13960" %}
+
+[news5 news]: {{news5}}#news
+[dandelion protocol]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.04439
+[2018-08-16 meeting log]: http://www.erisian.com.au/meetbot/bitcoin-core-dev/2018/bitcoin-core-dev.2018-08-16-19.03.log.html
+[nmnkgl relay]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-April/015863.html