March 2026

Perth BitDevs

Interactive topic explainers

NOTE The topic summaries for this month were generated with the assistance of AI and may contain errors. This is the first time this process has been trialled and is still a work in progress.

Governance & Drama

BIP-110 Update — Bugs, Defections & the OP_RETURN War

Consensus-breaking cache poisoning bug found, prominent supporters defecting, mempool.space OP_RETURN report, prediction markets giving <10% odds, fake signaling nodes.

OP_RETURN WarData Embedding

Contiguous Data Without OP_RETURN — Kixunil's Proof

66KB contiguous TIFF image embedded in a single Bitcoin transaction. No OP_RETURN, no Taproot, no policy compliance. The raw tx binary IS the image file. Another nail in BIP-110's coffin.

Gloria Zhao Steps Down as Bitcoin Core Maintainer

503 commits over 5+ years. Key architect of Package Relay (BIP 331) and V3 Transactions (BIP 431). Maintainer activity visualization and the bus factor question.

Bitcoin Core

v31Feature Freeze

Bitcoin Core v31 Feature Freeze & Cluster Mempool

Cluster mempool headline feature with SFL algorithm. Embedded ASMap, private broadcast, new tx output index, IPC mining interface, kernel progress. WA's own fanquake at the helm.

Visual explainer

P2P ProtocolBIP-434

P2P Protocol BIPs — Stale Tip Relay & Peer Feature Negotiation

New P2P message for stale block headers to speed up reorg handling. BIP-434 decouples feature negotiation from protocol version bumps.

Cryptography

Quantum Resistance — BIP-360 P2MR & Algorithmic Agility

BIP-360 finalized as Pay to Merkle Root. Heilman's algorithmic agility framework via RFC 7696. BitMex quantum freeze analysis. Defense in depth.

CryptographyMuSig2

Nested MuSig2 Security Proof

Chaincode Labs paper by Nadav Kohen. First formal proof that nesting MuSig2 aggregate keys is secure. Reduces to AOMDL assumption. Compatible with all existing MuSig2 deployments.

Bitcoin PIPEs v2 — Covenants & ZKP Without Consensus Changes

Witness encryption locks private keys behind cryptographic statements. Vaults, delegation, ZK verification — no soft fork needed. By [alloc] init.

Bitcoin ScriptRobin Linus

Binohash — Transaction Introspection via DER Encoding

Robin Linus exploits ECDSA's variable-length DER encoding as a side channel to read transaction data in Script. No soft fork required. Mainnet proof-of-concept deployed.

Post-Quantum Signatures on Liquid — SHRINCS via Simplicity

Blockstream deploys quantum-resistant transaction signing on Liquid using Simplicity smart contracts. 324-byte stateful signatures. No consensus changes needed. A testbed for BIP-360.

Mining

MiningBlock Relay

FIBRE Resurrected — Fast Block Relay for Mining Decentralization

UDP + Forward Error Correction for near-lightspeed block propagation. Averaging ~30ms globally. Reducing centralization pressure from latency advantages.

Visual explainer

MiningBIP Proposal

24-bit nVersion Nonce Space — Matt Corallo BIP

Expand nVersion nonce bits from 16 to 24. Takes header entropy from 48 to 56 bits (256× more). Unblocks BIP-54 Great Consensus Cleanup by eliminating need for coinbase nLockTime nonce rolling.

Privacy

Sloth — Secure Group Messaging over Nostr

MLS protocol (RFC 9420) meets Nostr decentralized relay network via Marmot. Forward secrecy, post-compromise security, no central servers. Successor to White Noise.

Security

SecurityPhishing

Phishing Attacks — Cake Wallet & Sparrow Impersonation

Active phishing campaigns targeting Bitcoin wallets via SEO poisoning and fake websites. Verification best practices and the broader supply chain attack pattern.

WalletsLightning

Cake Wallet Adds Lightning Network Support

Privacy-focused multi-asset wallet gains instant Bitcoin payments via Lightning. Combined with Monero support and no-KYC exchange, creates a strong privacy-preserving payment experience.