We are aware of a security incident on @Liquid_BTC. Purported white-hat hackers have withdrawn ~4,000 BTC (~$320 million) from the Liquid Federation wallet. The @Blockstream team is working on contacting them on-chain with a signed message. What we know so far is that the funds were withdrawn via the SideSwap PAK (Peg-out Authorization Key), but that key was not compromised, nor were any others. Exchanges have been notified and have already paused (or will pause) LBTC deposits and withdrawals. Other Liquid assets such as USDT, DePix, and RWAs are unaffected by this security incident. Bridge nodes have been temporarily disabled, so no new transactions can be submitted to the network. Effectively, the Liquid sidechain is paused until this issue is resolved. Liquid wallets will be impacted, and we're sorry for any inconvenience. Federation members are actively working on resolving this so we can restore normal network activity. You can monitor the situation via @mempool's liquid.network site below: mempool.space/address/bc1qdl…

** UPDATE ** -- The ECX hardfork (the Bip-300 one) is still launching August 23rd -- but it is NOT launching all at once. Instead, it launches in three stages: 1. Alpha - August 23rd - Block 963648 2. Beta - Sept 20th - Block 967680 3. ** Full Permanent Release ** -- Oct 31st -- Block 973,728 The Alpha and Beta launches will (ideally) resemble the full launch, in every way possible. If you acquire "practice" ECX, on the alpha and beta, you may burn these coins, to redeem for real (Oct 31) ECX. Details to follow. This rollout has a number of big advantages, including: 1. Allows us to wait out the current "LLM bug chaos". 2. Still rewards people for being early participants. 3. Still rewards people for using replay to drain exchanges of ECX — (it now gives them a light whack instead of a huge crisis). 4. Allows investors to *compound* their initial earned coins, by using them to get yet more coins. 5. Gives us *cover* if there is some kind of big problem or disaster. 6. Allows us to better estimate the initial equilibrium USD/ECX price ... & therefore the difficulty. 7. Gives people something to trade, Pump, speculate, practice on, etc. 8. Serves as "the ultimate FAQ", since instead of asking "does X work with Y" there is a real live demo we can point people to. Note: The full release will take place, approximately, on the 18th anniversary of the publication of Satoshi's Bitcoin Whitepaper. 🎃👻 Note: This fork has **opt-in** replay protection. Our software **will** add RP for you (and it will warn you about it). However, if you ignore us, we will replay your txns. So - you must intentionally split your ECX off, or it will follow your outgoing BTC to a new owner. See resources below. You have 12 weeks to practice! (Don't say I didn't warn you!!)

I will claim my ecash airdrop next month and try all the drivechains 1 ECX coin for every BTC, for everyone What about you?

Below, I present "SimplePool" -- v 0.1 A key Bitcoin problem is **mining centralization** -- both the centralization itself -- but (more importantly) the misplaced FUD about it. Poor thought leadership, has derailed the mining conversation, as well as other much more important mission critical Bitcoin projects. This **disturbing lack of honesty**, may even kill off the BTC project as a whole -- eventually. Anyway, to fix that, I proposed that we create: 1. open source **pool** software, maintained as a community project 2. open source **pool hopper** software -- so that Hashers can just point their hash at the Pool Hopper -- which will automatically give them the best price, the healthiest blocks, w/ the least censorship 3. an incentive compatible, scalable, safe, non-custodial way for small miners (up to 8 billion individual miners) to safely collect $ from a pool We have now shipped a **preliminary** version, of this. It is brand new -- but let me give you an idea of where it is going. Important: I do **not** think this software will ever replace today's existing pools. Pools are **brands** -- so Foundry, Luxor etc aren't going anywhere. And they collect $ based on their **reputation**. But --hopefully-- we can (eventually) make the SimplePool software so good -- that it takes the software maintenance problem off of their hands. While also increasing overall pool competitiveness. Especially if we obsessively focus on revenue maximization (which we will). This is an effective way to punish censorship -- if a pool censors for too long, it will be starved of $ and hashrate. It is also an effective way to recover from a situation where there is only 1 pool (or only 2 pools or 0 pools) -- since [1] the open source pool software makes it easy to create a new pool, and [2] the hopper will automatically feed hash to this new pool (if it pays extra high $ "introductory rate" PPS). In general, we do not want "closed source" software in Bitcoin. Instead we want openness and transparency. ---- Unfortunately, most of the Bitcoin dev industry is lazy / corrupt. Most of their time is spent conspiring, to form monopolist guilds -- so as to further enhance their collective laziness. So they have negative productivity. Basically everything you hear on Twitter / on stage at conferences / on the mailing lists (these days) is a lie -- other than that, they are really great people, I guess. Here are some examples of deranged mining beliefs: 1. Luke/Ocean's misguided abandonment of PPS. Luke believes each miner should hand-craft each block -- and not outsource this task to the pool. But he is wrong. Efficiency, specialization of labor, and accountability are --by far-- more important. There is zero conflict of interest between the pool and hasher -- both want to maximize the block's txn fee revenue. So the whole issue is a total waste of everyone's time, and an enormous source of confusion -- all to prop up Luke's misguided pet project, Ocean. 2. Worse than that, a large portion of the bitcoin-dev mailing list believes that up is down. According to them, any extra $ flowing to miners -- (merged mining, heat reuse, business side deals [ercot credits]) is misinterpreted as "changing mining incentives". But that is wrong. The truth is: it has always been possible (and desirable) to pay miners $. We can pay them extra fees, or we can have a business contract with them, or an enemy could "bribe" them (etc). Satoshi invented merged mining, and was an ardent believer of the (common sense) idea that miners should make as much $ as possible. This keeps them loyal to us -- the users. 3. Most of the claims made by Statum V2 are untrue. Also, that project has been active for like 7 years ... why isn't it done yet?? More details below.

On this day in history 15 years ago, cypherpunk Hal Finney argued Bitcoin can never be replaced because, “Any successful replacement of the Bitcoin block chain will forever undermine the credibility of any successor. How is an investor to know that it won’t happen again?”

everyone is missing the actual red alert. circle didn't just freeze a user's eoa. they blacklisted a live smart contract. the precedent is terrifying. if an issuer can nuke an entire protocol just because one tainted wallet deposited funds, then defi composability is dead. your stablecoins in a dex router, lending market, or yield farm are never safe. they can all become collateral damage overnight. defi protocols don't protect your fiat liquidity, they just group it together for a more efficient freeze. you can't build permissionless finance on a centralized kill switch.

Last-minute negotiations between Banking Committee Republicans and Democrats this morning led to a compromise that removed language from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) in Section 301 of the CLARITY Act. This is significant. The BRCA was the provision that explicitly protected noncustodial software developers from being classified as money transmitters. It was the direct response to the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet prosecutions, the carve-out that Senators Grassley and Lummis negotiated to shield good-faith developers while preserving prosecutors' ability to go after those who knowingly facilitate crime. That language has now been stripped to secure bipartisan votes. DeFi advocates are already raising alarms, saying the move could gut critical protections for software developers as the bill moves to the full Senate. Despite the concession, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) still did not vote to advance the bill, even after positively referencing the changes during the markup. Senator Bernie Moreno said during the hearing that there's "still work to be done on Section 301," signaling that negotiations on developer protections will continue as the Banking Committee and Agriculture Committee merge their texts ahead of a floor vote. The bill passed committee 15-9. But the developer protection language that made this bill matter to the people actually building in Bitcoin just got traded away for votes that didn't even materialize.

Bitcoin won't be killed by Quantum Computing. It'll be upgraded by it. @cz_binance is right .The solution exists. The hard part is coordination. That's exactly what OP_CAT Layer is building: restoring Bitcoin's full opcode capability, so the ecosystem has the foundation to adapt, upgrade, and survive whatever comes next. #Bitcoin #OPCAT #QuantumResistant #BTC