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@ Cryptape
2025-06-06 02:07:27Crypto Insights
Solving Sybil Attacks on Bitcoin Libre Relay Nodes — Are Social Solutions Better than Technical Ones?
Peter Todd posted that proponents of transaction "filtering" have started Sybil attacking Libre Relay nodes by running nodes with their "Garbageman" fork. These malicious nodes pretend to support NODE_LIBRE_RELAY, but secretly drop certain transactions that would be relayed by real Libre Relay nodes. He also highlighted the complexity of existing defenses and proposed a new angle: rather than relying on technical solutions, he encourages people to manually peer with nodes operated by people they personally know, arguing that human relationships can sometimes evaluate honesty more reliably than code.
Toward a Unified Identity Lookup Standard to Improve Lightning Payments
Bitcoin developer Aviv Bar-el introduced a new proposal — Well-Known Bitcoin Identity Endpoint — that aims to simplify wallet lookups for users’ Bitcoin addresses and identity data via a standardized HTTPS interface, thereby improving both the UX and security of Lightning and on-chain payments.
A Commit/Reveal Mechanism to Strengthen Bitcoin Against Quantum Threats
Tadge Dryja proposed a soft fork for Bitcoin to defend against quantum attacks, based on a variant of the commit/reveal Fawkescoin mechanism. While similar to Tim Ruffing’s earlier proposal, it includes key differences:
- It does not use encryption, instead relying on smaller, hash-based commitments, and describes activation as a soft fork.
- It only applies to outputs where public keys or scripts haven't been revealed — like pubkey hash or script hash outputs. It also works with Taproot, but must be spent via the script path, as the key-path is no longer quantum-secure.
- What to do about already-exposed public keys is a separate issue — this proposal is compatible with both "burning the coins" and "letting them be stolen."
Countdown to the Quantum Crisis: Is Bitcoin Ready?
A recent report from Chaincode Labs analyzes the threat of cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQC), and the technical, economic, and governance challenges Bitcoin faces in preparing. Their key conclusions:
- Timeline Assessment: CRQC capable of breaking Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography may emerge between 2030 and 2035.
- Scope of Vulnerable Funds: An estimated 20–50% of circulating BTC (4M–10M coins) may be vulnerable.
- Long-range attacks target inherently vulnerable script types (P2PK, P2MS, P2TR) and addresses with previously exposed public keys (via address reuse), allowing attackers unbounded time to derive private keys from public information already available on the blockchain.
- Short-range attacks, which affect all Bitcoin script types, exploit the vulnerability window between transaction broadcast and confirmation (or shortly thereafter) when public keys are temporarily exposed, requiring attackers to act within a timeframe of minutes to hours.
- Action Strategy: A dual-track approach is recommended:
- Short-term contingency: minimal but functional protections within ~2 years.
- Full-featured solutions: comprehensive research and fully developed defenses within ~7 years.
This strategy balances immediate needs with rigorous development to ensure Bitcoin can adapt, regardless of CRQC progress.
Enforcing Arbitrary Constraints on Bitcoin Transactions with zkSNARKs
Current methods for constraining Bitcoin transactions fall short on privacy or programmability. This research proposes a new zkSNARK-based design to impose arbitrary constraints on Bitcoin transactions while preserving some information privacy. By bypassing Bitcoin Script’s non-Turing-completeness, the approach allows unbounded constraints—constraints that repeat a certain operation an unbounded number of times. Read the paper.
First Cross-Chain Bridge Between Bitcoin and Cardano Is Live
A trust-minimized bridge from Bitcoin to Cardano has launched using the Cardinal protocol, enabling Ordinals to move between the two chains. The Cardinal protocol is based on BitVMX and facilitates asset movement without compromising ownership or security.
Its core mechanism is a committee-based validation model under a 1-out-of-n honest security model — meaning even if all but one validator is malicious, the system remains secure. This approach enhances decentralization and censorship resistance for cross-chain asset transfers.
Thunderbolt Protocol: Redefining Bitcoin Smart Contracts with UTXO Bundling and OP_CAT
Nubit’s Thunderbolt is seen as one of the most significant technical upgrades to Bitcoin in a decade, whose overall observation resembles “Lightning Network 2.0.” Rather than relying on Layer 2 networks or bridges, Thunderbolt upgrades the Bitcoin base layer via soft fork to enhance scalability, performance, and programmability:
- Throughput: Uses UTXO Bundling to optimize traditional transaction processing.
- Programmability: Reintroduces and extends OP_CAT.
- Asset protocols: Integrates Goldinals standard — a zk-proof and state-commitment-based asset issuance framework.
- Unlike rollups, Plasma, sidechains, or bridges, Thunderbolt scales directly on the main chain. With BitVisa, it enables decentralized identity and credentials, supporting transaction compression, smart contracts, asset standard integration, and on-chain transaction matching — all on Bitcoin main chain.
Bitcoin 2025 Conference Recap: Politicians Applaud, Stablecoins Spotlighted, DeFi Absent
This year’s Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas gathered major political figures and corporate leaders. U.S. Vice President JD Vance strongly endorsed crypto and positioned Bitcoin as a strategic asset in U.S.–China competition. He also stated that stablecoins won’t undermine the U.S. dollar, but could actually amplify America’s economic strength.
White House “Crypto Czar” David Sacks delivered a major policy announcement, hinting that under Trump’s executive order, the U.S. has a legal framework to acquire more Bitcoin for strategic reserves.
In addition, stablecoin regulation and crypto market reform were hot topics. Ardoido, the company controls over 60% of the stablecoin market, claimed “All the traditional financial firms will create stablecoins that will be offered to their existing customers.” Meanwhile, Tether emphasized its focus on underserved global populations excluded from the existing banking system.
A conference recap also noted that, unlike the 2022 and 2023 summits, this year’s event was dominated by Bitcoin maximalists, Ordinals creators, mining capitalists, and regulatory lobbyists — no longer DeFi builders, DAO operators, or Layer 2 scaling advocates. Developers from Ethereum and Solana ecosystems were notably absent. This may signal:
- The conference’s heavy political and sovereignty-driven tone made it less suitable for the tech-centric narratives favored by these developers.
- There may be a growing ideological and narrative rift between Web3 builders and the Bitcoin camp.
Top Reads on Blockchain and Beyond
Rethinking Governance After the Sui Attack: Decentralization, Procedural Legitimacy, and the Plurality of Blockchain Values
Following a major hack of Cetus, the largest DEX in the Sui ecosystem, the Sui network executed a protocol-level asset freeze and recovery. While this was an effective technical response, it also triggered criticism and debate around core blockchain principles such as censorship resistance and decentralization.
The author of this article questioned the absolutist stance that views decentralization as the highest—and sole—value. The author argues that most rational individuals would prefer “living in a society where decentralization is a supreme value but coercive force is allowed when someone infringes on another’s property,” over “a society where decentralization is the only supreme value, and thus coercive force is never permitted under any circumstances.”
In addition, the author also expressed disappointment at Sui’s “paternalistic” governance — particularly how validators acted during the incident. Sui uses a delegated proof-of-stake (dPoS) system, where token holders delegate their voting power to validators. This means individuals lose their direct say. But blockchain governance could be more individual-friendly and flexible. For instance, in Cosmos’ governance model, for certain specific proposal, users still can override their delegations and vote independently, more favorable than Sui’s model.
Beyond the debate on decentralization and governance, the article also proposes an alternative perspective: what matters most is establishing procedural legitimacy that aligns with the system’s vision. Different blockchain projects pursue different goals. For Sui, the core mission is to enable assets to be reliably defined and interact seamlessly on-chain. Therefore, judging Sui through the lens of other blockchains’ values or paradigms is misguided. In exceptional cases, prioritizing asset recovery and ecosystem stability over strict adherence to censorship resistance aligns more closely with Sui’s long-term vision. Whether Sui had chosen to not to censor related transactions or to intervene in the Cetus case, as long as the action follows a legitimate process, either decision is justifiable.
TEE-Based Private Proof Delegation
The PSE research and development team has built a system based on Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) using Intel TDX for secure zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) delegation. This system enables clients to privately outsource large proving tasks without leaking inputs. Unlike mobile-native proving constrained by hardware limits, TEE-based approaches support significantly larger statements today—and will scale further as proof systems improve. As a hardware-backed solution, TEEs remain compatible with future advancements in software (e.g., faster proof systems, more efficient implementations) and won't be invalidated by them, as long as the trust model is acceptable.
AI and Identity: Proof of Humanity in a World of Agents, Bots, and Deepfakes
We are living in a time where AI—including agents, bots, and deepfakes—is fundamentally reshaping the internet. As AI continues to evolve, identity verification on the web is becoming more crucial than ever. A recent a16z podcast explores the idea of “Proof of Human”—the challenge of verifying human identity online, diving into why it matters, common questions, and how such systems work under the hood.