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Newsletters: add #9 (2018-08-21)
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‎_includes/references.md‎

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{% comment %}<!-- BIPs in order lowest to highest -->{% endcomment %}
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[BIP37]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0037.mediawiki
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[BIP70]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawiki
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[BIP150]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0150.mediawiki
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[BIP151]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0151.mediawiki
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[BIP157]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0157.mediawiki
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[BIP158]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0158.mediawiki
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[BIP174]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0174.mediawiki
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{% comment %}<!-- old newsletters (variables & links) in date order earliest to latest -->{% endcomment %}
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{% assign news0 = "/en/newsletters/2018/06/08/" %}
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[newsletter #6]: {{news6}}
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{% assign news7 = "/en/newsletters/2018/08/07/" %}
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[newsletter #7]: {{news7}}
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{% assign news8 = "/en/newsletters/2018/08/14/" %}
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[newsletter #8]: {{news8}}
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{% assign news9 = "/en/newsletters/2018/08/21/" %}
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[newsletter #9]: {{news9}}
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{% comment %}
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<!--REQUIRES PERIODIC UPDATE: update rpc_version below to latest

‎_posts/en/newsletters/2018-08-21-newsletter.md‎

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

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