Episode notes
A bi-weekly news show informing you on the latest in Bitcoin, privacy and open source tech hosted by Ungovernables, Max and Q.
AOB
U.S. Treasury seizes nearly 1B in Iran-linked crypto, Tether freezes 344M USDT on Tron https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/u-s-treasury-the-united-states-iran
The Mined in America Act would put the Bitcoin network at risk
https://www.therage.co/mined-in-america-act-bitcoin-at-risk/
CVE in Core Lightning: Optech #407 disclosure
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/05/29/
Introducing Cube: Burak unveils a trustless Bitcoin smart contract L2
https://medium.com/cube-bitcoin/introducing-cube-8b3702e470a5
Published: May 2026
Anonymous plaintiff sues for title to $293 billion in dormant Bitcoin
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/anonymous-plaintiff-seeks-legal-bitcoin
Published: 2026-05-28
The U.S. Constitution inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain via expanded OP_RETURN https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/someone-inscribed-the-constitution-bitcoin
Published: 2026-05-29
RELEASES
Bitcoin Protocol, Core, Knots, Security
TO DONATE TO ROMAN'S DEFENSE FUND: https://freeromanstorm.com/donate
AOB
- FTF with Zach
- Q eurotrip
- New Foundation website
U.S. Treasury seizes nearly 1B in Iran-linked crypto, Tether freezes 344M USDT on Tron https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/u-s-treasury-the-united-states-iran
The Mined in America Act would put the Bitcoin network at risk
https://www.therage.co/mined-in-america-act-bitcoin-at-risk/
CVE in Core Lightning: Optech #407 disclosure
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/05/29/
Introducing Cube: Burak unveils a trustless Bitcoin smart contract L2
https://medium.com/cube-bitcoin/introducing-cube-8b3702e470a5
Published: May 2026
Anonymous plaintiff sues for title to $293 billion in dormant Bitcoin
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/anonymous-plaintiff-seeks-legal-bitcoin
Published: 2026-05-28
The U.S. Constitution inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain via expanded OP_RETURN https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/someone-inscribed-the-constitution-bitcoin
Published: 2026-05-29
RELEASES
Bitcoin Protocol, Core, Knots, Security
- Core Lightning v26.06rc2 — 2026-05-22
- Release candidate 2 for CLN 26.06. Documentation and gRPC interface refinements on top of rc1's graceful command, sendamount RPC, and BOLT12 payer-proof support. Routing-node operators should test on a non-production node before adopting.
- Eclair 0.14.0 — 2026-05-21
- Significant Lightning release from ACINQ. Final versions of channel splicing, simple taproot channels, and zero-fee commitments all ship in this version. This is the Eclair side of the same protocol work showing up in CLN and LDK. If you run an Eclair routing node, this is the upgrade to track.
- Coldcard MK5 launch — 2026-05-29
- New flagship hardware. Larger Gorilla Glass screen, redesigned buttons, improved NFC, dual secure element architecture retained. Already supported in Bitcoin Safe 2.0.0rc0 from earlier this fortnight.
- Frostsnap 0.3.0 — 2026-05-27
- Headline change: deterministic firmware build with cryptographic digest verification. So end users can independently verify the firmware binary matches the source. That is the right direction for any hardware signer carrying real money.
- Keystone 3 v2.4.4 — 2026-05-26
- Wallet connection removal, Zcash SLIP39 support added, device verification fixes.
- Trezor Suite v26.5.1 — 2026-05-27 (FTD re-surfacing)
- Adds ERC-681 QR code support in the send form. Show editorial: only relevant if you use Trezor for Ethereum-side workflows, not a Bitcoin-only change.
- Ledger Live Desktop 4.5.0 — 2026-05-21
- Bridge integration refactoring across desktop and mobile.
- Ledger Live Mobile 4.6.0 — 2026-05-28
- Async API updates and bridge resolution improvements.
- Sparrow Wallet 2.5.0 — 2026-05-21
- Headline feature: Silent Payments receiving wallets, including support for airgapped hardware wallet signers. Adds frigate.2140.dev as a Silent Payments capable public Electrum server, auto-selected when required. Plus a BIP32 derivation fallback when retrieving signing nodes for high-index inputs. This is the biggest privacy upgrade of the fortnight in any consumer-facing Bitcoin wallet, and the airgapped-signer support means Coldcard and similar users get it without going hot.
- Sparrow Frigate 1.5.3 — 2026-05-30
- Adds a privacy-preserving hourly aggregate of historical scan stats, locally generated server.features response when the backend returns a method-not-found error, improvements to the hosts field in server.features.
- Bitcoin Seed Tool 2.3.0 — 2026-05-19 (borderline, in grace)
- Educational interface redesign with violet accent color and integrated learning features.
- Nunchuk Android 2.5.2 — 2026-05-27
- "Bug fixes and improvements," nothing detailed publicly.
- Liana Business v0.1 — 2026-05-20
- First alpha of Liana's business product line. Environment variable support for signet testing. New product tier from Wizard Sardine for business-focused multisig with timelocked recovery.
- Peach Bitcoin 0.69.0 (build 350) — 2026-05-19
- Encrypted backup of custom payout addresses, restoration guidance, camera permission fix, push notification translations.
- Phoenix 2.8.0 — 2026-05-22
- UI fixes on Android: scanning inverted QR codes, a button to use the entire available balance when paying Lightning.
- Phoenixd 0.8.0 — 2026-05-20
- Upgraded lightning-kmp dependency to 1.12.0.
- ZEUS 13.0.2 — 2026-05-21
- Stable release of the RC chain we previewed last fortnight. New default RGS server at rgs.zeusln.com with 15-minute graph updates instead of 3-hour. Improved clipboard, NFC, UI improvements.
- Arkade arkd v0.9.6 — 2026-05-26
- Package and component renaming, CI workflow improvements, golang version bump.
- Arkade TS SDK @arkade-os/sdk 0.4.32 — 2026-05-29
- Maintenance bump.
- Arkade TS SDK @arkade-os/boltz-swap 0.3.37 — 2026-05-29
- Maintenance bump on the Boltz-swap helper.
- ThunderHub v0.18.4 — 2026-05-29
- Native display formatting for trading distribution, better CLTV headroom in route building.
- Blink Mobile 2.4.49 — 2026-05-30
- Bug fix: removes ABI-prefixed versionCode overrides.
- LNbits v1.5.5-rc1 — 2026-05-24
- Release candidate.
- Mostro v0.17.4 — 2026-05-22
- Payout confirmation to winner, solver-directed dispute slash, concurrent taker bonds with first-to-lock wins, MOSTRO_NSEC_PRIVKEY environment variable, Yadio price tolerance fix.
- Bisq v1.10.1 — 2026-05-30
- Raises trade amount limits to 0.250 BTC after the v1.10.0 post-exploit reset. Adjusts risk-based reduction factors. Fixes a BSQ swap validation bug.
- Bisq v1.10.0 — 2026-05-17 (carries over from last fortnight as final tag on cutoff day)
- The post-incident hardening release we covered last fortnight: trade protocol validation, PGP supply-chain verification, 0.125 BTC initial cap, macOS Apple Silicon support.
- Cashu TS v4.5.1 — 2026-05-23
- Deprecates the current checkProofsStates method in favour of a v5-compatible one. Wallet builders should plan the migration.
- Fedimint SDK canary release — 2026-05-27
- React Native transport: flattened RPC payload, persistent callback. Rolling canary channel.
- BDK FFI 3.0.0 — 2026-05-29
- Major version of the BDK language bindings. Anyone shipping a wallet on top of BDK should read the migration notes carefully.
- Liquid GDK 0.77.4 — 2026-05-27
- Rate-limiting error handling, Rust dependency updates, UTXO retrieval fixes, build improvements.
- JoinMarket-NG 0.31.1 — 2026-05-30
- Privacy-critical fix: prevents a Sybil DoS where relayed !hp2 floods could starve a maker's own post-ioauth commitment broadcasts. Also installs whiptail in maker and taker container images so the jm-ng TUI works out of the box. JoinMarket-NG continues to ship hardening on a tight cadence.
- Tor Browser 15.0.14 — 2026-05-19 (borderline, in grace)
- Important Firefox security updates rolled in.
- Mullvad Browser 15.0.14 — 2026-05-19 (borderline, in grace)
- Firefox 140.11.0esr base, NoScript 13.6.19.1984.
- Amethyst 1.11.0 — 2026-05-20
- Restores Lightning Address and LNURL fields in Edit Profile. Useful: those fields were missing for a stretch and creators relying on zaps as a revenue stream were getting cut off in profile edits.
- TFTC retrospective: Why Keonne Rodriguez is in prison for building Samourai Wallet — 2026-05-28
- Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #407 — 2026-05-29
- CLN vulnerability disclosure (already in news), transcripts from a May Bitcoin Core developer meeting covering SwiftSync, cluster mempool, Erlay redesign, package relay. Eclair 0.14.0 and CLN 26.06rc2 release context.
- Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #406 — 2026-05-22
- BIP322 advances to Complete status with human-readable prefixes and PSBT support. TCP hole punching for Bitcoin nodes behind NATs (we flagged this Delving Bitcoin thread last fortnight). Services section highlights Ibis Wallet (BDK-based with coin control and Tor), LDK Server, Mempool.space taproot visualization.
- Bitcoin Optech #406 recap podcast — 2026-05-26
- Discussion of BIP322 updates, TCP hole punching, Ibis Wallet, LDK Server, Mempool.space v3.3.0, peer-observer infrastructure.
- Bitcoin Optech #405 recap podcast — 2026-05-19
- Bitcoin Core CVE-2024-52911 discussion and the UTXO-set P2P sharing draft BIP with Fabian Jahr.
- Rainey's book on financial censorship
- Mentioned by Gladstein on 2026-05-21 as quoting his work on the war on cash and the blocksize war. Plug in education / further reading.
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