Bitcoin Optech: Newsletter #411 Recap

Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Gustavo Flores Echaiz, and Mike Schmidt are joined by Nishant Bansal and Matthew Zipkin to discuss Newsletter #411.

News

● LND zero-timestamp gossip DoS disclosure (1:00)

Selected Q&A from Bitcoin Stack Exchange

● Is it a bug that `OP_IF` is part of the tapscript opcodes? (34:02)

● Why would forbidding `OP_IF` in tapscript be a problem? (41:11)

● Does a softfork always succeed? (49:17)

● How to set up Bitcoin Core to mine a valid block after the BIP110 activation in August 2026? (56:44)

● Are BIP110 blocks on a branch with lower difficulty valid? (59:47)

● What is the story behind Bitcoin test networks? (1:07:41)

● Why was `-datacarriersize` redefined in 2022, and why was the 2023 proposal to expand it not merged? (1:15:35)

● Are chains of 26 unconfirmed transactions prohibited by the wallet in Bitcoin Core 31.0? (1:25:33)

● Are there changes in Bitcoin Core 29.0 that affect memory usage? (1:28:20)

● What is Bitcoin Core's release schedule? (1:30:21)

Releases and release candidates

● LDK v0.1.10 (1:34:50)

● LDK v0.2.3 (1:35:31)

● BTCPay Server 2.4.0 (1:37:04)

Notable code and documentation changes

● Bitcoin Core #35070 (1:39:27)

● Bitcoin Core #35182 (13:15)

● BIPs #2198 (1:46:09)

● LDK #4713 (1:51:17)

● LDK #4684 (1:53:47)