The Frontier

An attacker exploited Liquid's consensus engine to drain 4,000 BTC from its 11-of-15 multisig federation. The hacker returned 3,400 BTC but kept 600 BTC as an involuntary bounty, demanding a 10% voluntary payment for the rest.

Blockstream communicated with the Liquid hacker via PGP-encrypted onchain messages before the attacker threatened to publish negotiations in plain text. Blockstream plans to pursue every legal avenue to recover the remaining 600 stolen Bitcoin.

Security researcher Cali publicly claimed Blockstream could have avoided the Liquid exploit by answering red team emails. Keon criticizes this as clout-chasing influencer behavior, arguing that effective security work must be conducted quietly.

Natalia highlighted Silent Link and Natada as non-KYC Bitcoin eSIM options for exiting fiat systems. Silent Link offers data plans for $9 using Lightning and Bitcoin, while Natada provides rented phone numbers and VPN services.

Keon warns that Lightning sender privacy is only perfect when running a non-custodial node that constructs its own routes. Custodial systems, Strike, and Lightning Service Providers doing route construction can observe transaction details.

The European Union Cyber Resilience Act will require digital product providers to report security vulnerabilities and dependency updates to governments within 24 to 72 hours. Keon criticizes the law as a heavy-handed regulatory burden that will drive developers out of Europe.

An Anthropic researcher resigned after six months, warning that competition is driving companies to build self-improving AI models. He estimates a greater than 10% chance that AI will cause human extinction within the next decade.

Keon argues that AI models are not yet hands-free and are regressing on programming tasks. However, some companies are using LLMs to maintain multiple codebases, which can double their overall code attack surface.

The Rhysida cybercrime group hacked the Berlin Department of Public Works and Department of Transportation, accessing data on 4 million residents. They published 1.4 million files on the dark web after the city refused a 30 Bitcoin ransom.

Albi released version 1.9 of the Nostr Wallet Connect ecosystem map. Keon explains that NWC leverages Nostr relays as public turn servers, providing a highly efficient method for connecting external web apps to Lightning wallets.

Stacker News experienced a major Zap War after a user promoted a shitcoin project. Keon and other users spent nearly 500,000 sats downzapping the post, sparking a debate on whether financial moderation models fail when users prioritize fee revenue over platform policing.

An open-source developer forked the Stacker News codebase on GitHub to create a version of the platform that swaps out Bitcoin for Monero.

Den questioned whether anyone can successfully launder stolen Bitcoin. Keon notes the cold card hacker attempted to launder funds through CoinJoin, ThorChain, and Ethereum swaps, but the efficacy of maintaining unlinkability across these protocols remains highly uncertain.

Jason B developed Little Victoria, an educational, Sim City-style city-building game set in the Victorian era. The game teaches players historical events while using Victorian-era art and classical music.