Newsletters: add #11 (2018-09-04)

_includes/references.md

@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@
 [BIP37]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0037.mediawiki
 [BIP70]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawiki
 [BIP125]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki
+[BIP133]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0133.mediawiki
+[BIP143]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0143.mediawiki
 [BIP150]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0150.mediawiki
 [BIP151]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0151.mediawiki
 [BIP157]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0157.mediawiki
@@ -46,6 +48,7 @@ version of BitcoinCore.org's RPC docs-->
 {% assign rpc_prefix = "https://bitcoincore.org/en/doc/0.16.2/rpc" %}
 [rpc abandontransaction]: {{rpc_prefix}}/wallet/abandontransaction/
 [rpc fundrawtransaction]: {{rpc_prefix}}/rawtransactions/fundrawtransaction/
+[rpc getpeerinfo]: {{rpc_prefix}}/network/getpeerinfo/
 [rpc importaddress]:   {{rpc_prefix}}/wallet/importaddress/
 [rpc importmulti]:   {{rpc_prefix}}/wallet/importmulti/
 [rpc importprivkey]:   {{rpc_prefix}}/wallet/importprivkey/

_posts/en/newsletters/2018-09-04-newsletter.md

@@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
+---
+title: 'Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #11'
+permalink: /en/newsletters/2018/09/04/
+name: 2018-09-04-newsletter
+type: newsletter
+layout: newsletter
+lang: en
+---
+This week's newsletter includes a reminder to please help test the
+release candidate for Bitcoin Core's next version, information about the
+development of Optech's new public dashboard, summaries of two
+discussions on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list, and notable commits from
+Bitcoin infrastructure projects.
+
+## Action items
+
+- **Allocate time to test Bitcoin Core 0.17RC2:** Bitcoin Core has
+  uploaded [binaries][bcc 0.17] for 0.17 Release Candidate (RC) 2.
+  Testing is greatly appreciated and can help ensure the quality of the
+  final release.
+
+## Dashboard items
+
+- **Optech dashboard:** a [blog post][dashboard post] by Marcin
+  Jachymiak introduces the live dashboard he developed for Optech during
+  his internship this summer, providing not only an overview of what
+  information the dashboard makes available to you but a description of
+  how he built it for anyone who wants to independently replicate the
+  data or otherwise extend the dashboard using their own full node.
+
+    The rest of the Optech team thanks Marcin for his dedicated work and
+    keen insight, and we wish him all the best in the upcoming year.
+
+## News
+
+- **Discussion of resetting testnet:** Bitcoin's first public testnet was
+  introduced in late 2010; a few months later it was reset to testnet2;
+  and reset again to the current testnet3 in mid-2012.  Today testnet3
+  has over 1.4 million blocks and consumes over 20 GB of disk space on
+  archival nodes.  A [discussion][testnet reset] was started on the
+  Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about resetting testnet again to provide a
+  smaller chain for experimentation.  In addition to discussion about
+  whether or not it's good to have a large test chain for
+  experimentation, it was also [suggested][signed testnet] that a future
+  testnet might want to use signed blocks instead of proof of work to
+  allow the chain to operate more predictably than the current testnet3,
+  which is prone to wild hash rate oscillations.  This would also allow
+  the easy management of testnet disaster drills such as large chain
+  reorganizations.
+
+- **Proposed sighash updates:** before signing a transaction, a Bitcoin
+  wallet creates a cryptographic hash of the the unsigned transaction
+  and some other data.  Then, instead of signing the transaction
+  directly, the wallet signs that hash.  Since the original 0.1 implementation
+  of Bitcoin, wallets have been allowed to remove certain parts of the
+  unsigned transaction from the hash before signing it, which allows those
+  parts of the transaction to be changed by other people such as
+  other participants in a multiparty contract.
+
+    In [BIP143][], segwit preserved all of the original Bitcoin 0.1
+    signature hash (sighash) flags but made some minor (but useful)
+    changes to what data wallets include in the hash that made it harder
+    for miners to DoS attack other miners and which made it easier for
+    underpowered devices such as hardware wallets to protect users
+    funds.  This week, BIP143 co-author Johnson Lau [posted][sighash
+    changes] some suggested changes to sighash flags, including new
+    flags, that could be implemented as a soft fork using the witness
+    script update mechanism provided as part of segwit.
+
+    {% comment %}<!-- for reference: numbers in following paragraph
+    correspond to the numbered bullet points in Lau's email -->{%
+    endcomment %}
+
+    If the changes are adopted, some of the notable advantages include:
+    making it easier for hardware wallets to securely participate in
+    CoinJoin-style transactions <!--#1--> as well as other smart
+    contracts<!--#2-->, potentially easier fee bumping by any individual
+    party in a multiparty transaction<!--#6-->, and preventing counter
+    parties and third parties to sophisticated smart contracts from
+    bloating the size of multiparty transactions in a DoS attack that
+    lowers a transaction's fee priority.<!--#8-->
+
+## Notable commits
+
+*Notable commits this week in [Bitcoin Core][core commits], [LND][lnd
+commits], and [C-lightning][cl commits].  Reminder: new merges to
+Bitcoin Core are made to its master development branch and are unlikely
+to become part of the upcoming 0.17 release---you'll probably have to
+wait until version 0.18 in about six months from now.*
+
+{% comment %}<!-- LND only had three merges this week, none of them exciting IMO -harding -->{% endcomment %}
+
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="core commits"
+  repo="bitcoin/bitcoin"
+  start="427253cf7e19ed9ef86b45457de41e345676c88e"
+  end="68f3c7eb080e461cfeac37f8db7034fe507241d0"
+%}
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="lnd commits"
+  repo="lightningnetwork/lnd"
+  start="26f68da5b2883885fcf6a8e79b3fc9bb12cc9eef"
+  end="2b448be048daf85cef4cbb37ceed4413fdb051e6"
+%}
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="cl commits"
+  repo="ElementsProject/lightning"
+  start="77d3ca3ea3ba607e0b08c7921c41bfc0a9658ed2"
+  end="77d3ca3ea3ba607e0b08c7921c41bfc0a9658ed2"
+%}
+
+- [Bitcoin Core #12952][]: after being deprecated for several major
+  release and disabled by default in the upcoming 0.17 release, the
+  built-in accounts system in Bitcoin Core has been removed from the
+  master development branch.  The accounts system was added in late 2010
+  to allow an early Bitcoin exchange to manage their user accounts in
+  Bitcoin Core, but it lacked many of the features desirable for true
+  production systems (like atomic database updates) and it often
+  confused users, so removing it gracefully has been a goal for several
+  years.
+
+- [Bitcoin Core #13987][]: when Bitcoin Core receives a transaction
+  whose fee per vbyte is below its minimum feerate, it ignores that
+  transaction.  [BIP133][] (implemented in Bitcoin Core 0.13.0) allows a
+  node to tell its peers what its minimum feerate is so that those peers
+  to don't waste bandwidth by sending transactions that will be ignored.
+  This PR now provides that information for each peer in the
+  [getpeerinfo][rpc getpeerinfo] RPC using the new `minfeefilter` value,
+  allowing you to easily discover the minimum feerates being used by
+  your peers.
+
+- C-Lightning now allows you to ask lightningd to calculate a feerate
+  target for your on-chain transactions by passing the either "urgent",
+  "normal", or "slow" to the `feerate` parameter.  Alternatively, you
+  may use this parameter to manually specify a particular feerate you
+  want to use.
+
+{% include references.md %}
+{% include linkers/issues.md issues="12952,13987" %}
+
+[bcc 0.17]: https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.17.0/
+[dashboard post]: /en/dashboard-announcement/
+[testnet reset]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-August/016337.html
+[signed testnet]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-August/016348.html
+[sighash changes]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-August/016345.html