Meetup #9, February 2026 - Theme: Covenants

[baz21m]

Add topics for the Next Meetup by replying under this issue. Bitcoin software, tools, research, protocol upgrades (BIPs), mining, etc...

In addition to recent news, upgrades, proposals and other timely discussions, this month's theme is: Quantum.
(Off-theme topics welcome too!)

Upcoming themes (TBC):
Oct: Mining
Nov: Single Sig
Jan: Quantum
Feb: Covenants
Mar: Multi-sig wallets, including demos
Apr: NOSTR
May: Chaumian e-cash
Jun: Mining
Jul: Bitcoin Core (basic-to-intermediate)
Aug: Lightning

[baz21m]

Improved Core Sending Privacy:

Bitcoin Core #29415 adds a new privatebroadcast boolean option to broadcast transactions through short-lived Tor or I2P connections, or through the Tor proxy to IPv4/IPv6 peers, when using the sendrawtransaction RPC. This approach protects the privacy of the transaction originator by concealing their IP address and by using separate connections for each transaction to prevent linkability

[AskiiDev]

The 'Patoshi' Pattern:

The claim is often thrown around that Satoshi has a stash of over 1 million BTC, but, how did anybody actually come to that conclusion?

A bit of a dive into the source code of the first Bitcoin client, and how a simple privacy oversight created one of the most interesting forensic fingerprints of the last two decades.

https://github.com/benjiqq/bitcoinArchive/tree/master/bitcoin0.1/src
https://mempool.space/block/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f411475428afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048

Early mining:

The pattern itself:

[btcschellingpt]

Quantum
Following on from last month's focus on Quantum, and touching on Taproot specifically, BitMex Research released this post on how Taproot's more private and flexible scripting can offer a useful upgrade path with an indeterminate and unknown timeframe in mind: https://www.bitmex.com/blog/Taproot%20Quantum%20Spend%20Paths

[btcschellingpt]

Understanding bitcoin transactions with rawbit

rawbit.io is a project (https://github.com/rawBit-io/rawbit) that visually shows how the components of a raw bitcoin transaction fit together to make a broadcast-ready transaction. There are a set of pre-defined tutorials (Flow examples) for exploring typical transactions, and the ability to manually drag and drop each component piece for anything you want to explore

[baz21m]

Understanding bitcoin transactions with rawbit

This transaction may be fun to analyse with Rawbit?
https://x.com/i/status/2019790868576669791
txid:
69bf50439381a1b70fb93cae8599bd53164b0dd05b0216ce11547bcb28550564

[btcschellingpt]

Gloria stepping down as a maintainer

bitcoin/bitcoin#34517

[TrentOmega]

Quantum Following on from last month's focus on Quantum, and touching on Taproot specifically, BitMex Research released this post on how Taproot's more private and flexible scripting can offer a useful upgrade path with an indeterminate and unknown timeframe in mind: https://www.bitmex.com/blog/Taproot%20Quantum%20Spend%20Paths

Fixed link https://www.bitmex.com/blog/Taproot-Quantum-Spend-Paths

[baz21m]

Bitcoin Covenants:

Bitcoin covenants are proposed protocol changes that add spending constraints to Bitcoin transactions, enabling features like vaults and better scaling. Several well-regarded resources provide concise overviews of key proposals such as CTV (BIP-119), OP_CAT, CSFS, and others.

Recommended Articles
These articles summarize major covenant proposals, their use cases, and community debates without unnecessary depth.

Bitfinex Blog: Covenant Proposals for 2025 (Feb 2025): Covers CTV, CSFS, OP_CAT, and Jeremy Rubin's phased rollout call, including pros, cons, and popularity polls.

Bitcoin Optech: Covenants Overview: Tracks ongoing developments like recursive covenants and 2025 polls on developer preferences.

Bitcoin Magazine: Bitcoin Covenants Explained (May 2025): Details introspection, restrictions, and forward-emitting capabilities.

Recommended Videos
Short, technical explainers from trusted Bitcoin educators.

Ian Major: Covenants - The Next Soft Fork? (20 mins): Surveys CTV, APO, VAULT; balances benefits (e.g., batching) and risks.

NIFTYNEI: How Bitcoin Covenants Work (short explainer): Simple bucket analogy for UTXOs and spending limits.

Recommended Podcasts
Episodes with covenant experts discussing trade-offs.

Bitcoin Takeover: Andrew Poelstra on OP_CAT vs. CTV: Compares proposals, vaults, and controversies (~1 hour).

Stephan Livera Podcast #537: Brandon Black on Covenants: Elevator pitch on CTV benefits for Lightning scaling (~1.5 hours).

[mineracks]

Worth a brief discussion on SeedSigner/seedsigner#874 by local legend AusDavo - this is a highly relevant example of how those of us with an interest in Bitcoin Tech and FOSS can work in practice to solve real world problems faced by bitcoiners right here in Australia- more proof that you can just do things.

[TrentOmega]

That was a conversation last month around address reuse and and how public key keys get exposed, and there eemed to be some confusion, so might be worth further discussion as it raises some interesting points.

Reusing an address to receive bitcoin doesn’t expose your public keys, only by spending from that address does it do this (spending requires the hash preimage, i.e. the public key and/or script, to be included in the ScriptSig or Witness)

Two ways to expose your keys with address reuse:

1. Spending a UTXO, from the reused receive address, without proper coin-control, will likely lead to exposing your public.

This is caused by how bitcoin wallets manage their UTXOs. The most common way wallets select which UTXOs to use as inputs to a transaction is by trying to find a single input that generates the smallest change output. In doing this it would select only one of the UTXOs in the multi receive address, thus exposing the other UTXOs public keys.

2. Sending bitcoin to an already spent address, thus exposing the public key of that new UTXO.

How to do address reuse safely:

Use an address you’ve never spent from to receive bitcoin, and when it comes time to spend, use coin selection to spend it all in one transaction, thus you don’t leave any UTXOs behind with an exposed public key.

[btcschellingpt]

Overview of some contributors' level of analysis and support for the range of covenant proposals:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Covenants_support