An impressive number of cool bitcoin things happened in the last 2 weeks
Darosior published a draft bip for the Great Consensus Cleanup:
https://x.com/darosior/status/1904947392744485062
A new version of frostr was released with a desktop app and a browser extension:
https://x.com/bitcoinplebdev/status/1905056787771842665
Electrum announced direct nostr support for PSBT signing, NWC integration, and submarine swap coordination:
https://x.com/ElectrumWallet/status/1905024339759550760
A new implementation of ring signatures came out that works with nostr's elliptic curve (and therefore bitcoin's):
https://github.com/AbdelStark/nostringer
One of the guys from Vinteum published a set of utxo snapshots for various bitcoin-related networks:
https://bitcoin-snapshots.jaonoctus.dev/
A payjoin coordinator called Private Pond got an open source release:
https://x.com/MrKukks/status/1906615058689335400
Exodus Wallet removed their lightning support:
https://x.com/EliNagarBrr/status/1906631948325331051
Bitgo added lightning support:
https://x.com/BitGo/status/1909638805981909063
Breez announced a new bitcoin wallet similar to Aqua:
https://x.com/Breez_Tech/status/1907435825287041465
Google decided to censor the Bitcoin Dev Mailing List:
https://x.com/jarolrod/status/1907480779078221842
And then they brought it back:
https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev
The U.S. Justice Department announced it will stop targeting mixing services:
https://x.com/valkenburgh/status/1909586503803470238
Mastercard annouced some sort of partnership with Kraken Pay (I think it's just gonna be a Kraken branded mastercard that deducts funds from your Kraken account, but we'll see):
https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2025/04/08/mastercard-and-kraken-revolutionize-crypto-payments-a-strategic-alliance-is-born-in-europe/
Mempool Space launched version 3.2.0 of their software:
https://x.com/mempool/status/1909532932211138574
Jeremy Rubin found a way to improve bitvm with garbled circuits:
https://rubin.io/bitcoin/2025/04/04/delbrag/
Rootstock announced the first bitvm hackathon:
https://bitvmx.org/force/
Robin Linus figured out how to use CTV to improve bitvm in such a way that bitvm "federations" cannot run off with user funds (though they can still hold them hostage):
https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/how-ctv-csfs-improves-bitvm-bridges/1591
The link also includes an explanation of a CTV "hack" whereby you can get it to commit to all vouts AND any number of vins (except all of them)
Rijndael proposed Taplocks which use zero-knowledge proofs to make a tapleaf unspendable unless an oracle reveals a secret (even if the script contains OP_SUCCESS!):
https://x.com/rot13maxi/status/1909252898170564621
The Bitcoin Policy Institute proposed "BitBonds" -- novel loan contracts that allegedly let borrowers (particularly the USA) acquire bitcoin in a budget-neutral way:
https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/bitcoin-enhanced-treasury-bonds-an-idea-whose-time-has-come
Ruben Somsen announced SwiftSync which increases blockchain validation speed by over 5x:
https://gist.github.com/RubenSomsen/a61a37d14182ccd78760e477c78133cd
LNBits finally released version 1.0.0 of their software:
https://github.com/lnbits/lnbits/releases/tag/v1.0.0
They also added appimage support:
https://docs.lnbits.org/guide/installation.html
Starkware combined ColliderScript and Bitvm into something wacky:
https://x.com/StarkWareLtd/status/1910317337301152034
Trump blocked the IRS Reporting rule for 'DeFi Brokers':
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/trump-signs-resolution-blocking-irs-reporting-rule-for-defi-brokers/
A github called "Awesome CTV" was launched, containing links to interesting things about CTV, including software demos, technical analysis, and dev tools:
https://github.com/arshbot/awesome-ctv-csfs
What a wild couple of weeks it's been!