ChainCatcher news, Bitcoin Magazine disclosed on the X platform that the Human Rights Foundation donated 7 BTC, approximately $706,000, to 20 Bitcoin developers and projects. These projects are mainly focused in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, covering areas such as technical education under authoritarian regimes, independent media operations, decentralized mining, and providing more private financial solutions for human rights organizations.The funded projects include: the Stratum V2 reference implementation (SRI) developed by bit-aloo, the open-source mining pool Public Pool for low-power devices, Africa's first female Bitcoin Core developer Naiyoma, Bitcoin Core contributor Daniela Brozzoni, Bitcoin Core mobile UI/UX design, and the Kenyan payment application Tando, among others. HRF stated that these funds will be used to support project development, operational costs, and community building to promote the adoption and development of Bitcoin globally.

ChainCatcher news, according to Protos, Bitcoin developers recently disclosed details of a high-risk software vulnerability named CVE-2024-35202. According to senior core developers, over 13% of home and commercial computers executing Bitcoin rules globally are affected by a remote shutdown vulnerability.The vulnerability affects nodes running versions of Bitcoin Core prior to 25.0, allowing attackers to crash nodes by manipulating block transaction messages. The vulnerability originates from Core's compact block protocol, which uses shortened transaction identifiers to reduce internet bandwidth usage. Attackers can trigger conflicts in these identifiers, causing nodes to request complete blocks. While requesting complete, untruncated blocks is a security precaution, versions of the software prior to 25.0 have flaws in the logic for handling subsequent blocktxn messages.In short, nodes can be forced into an invalid state by manipulating logic gates, leading to a complete crash. Although there is no economic incentive for ordinary attackers, developers strongly recommend that node operators update to the latest version. The credit for discovering and disclosing this vulnerability goes to Niklas Gögge, and Bitcoin Core 25.0 has resolved this issue.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Bitcoin developer Robin Linus proposed a theoretical method last year aimed at making the Bitcoin blockchain more programmable. Today, he has launched a second iteration called "BitVM2," which reportedly has significant improvements that bring this concept closer to real-world deployment. The project will rely on advanced cryptography and innovative design to establish a secure "bridge" that transfers Bitcoin from the main network to a secondary network known as "rollup."According to a white paper released this week by Linus and five co-authors, the basic setup involves using cryptography to compress programs into subprograms, which are then executed in Bitcoin transactions. Subsequently, these programs are "verified" in three on-chain transactions, essentially ensuring that no one is attempting to cheat or steal. According to one of the co-authors, Alexei Zamyatin, previous versions required up to 70 transactions for verification. It is reported that Alexei Zamyatin is working separately on the Bitcoin L2 network Build on Bitcoin (BOB).A key improvement in the new version is that anyone can challenge suspicious transactions, a feature known as "permissionless challenges." The original BitVM was released last October but was never truly deployed in practice, with only a fixed group of operators able to initiate challenges."This design brings us these significant improvements," Zamyatin said in a video interview, "We now have a complete and comprehensive description of the BitVM paradigm."

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin developer Burak is developing a new Bitcoin L2 "Brollup," aimed at bringing more DeFi use cases to it.Burak explained that Brollup offers a Bitcoin-native rollup design that bundles transactions without the need for a hard fork of Bitcoin or issuing non-Bitcoin tokens. Brollup is still in the "design phase" and may launch a signet (testnet) later this year.Burak added that the goal of Brollup is to support over 90% of DeFi use cases at the time of its final release.

ChainCatcher news, as the United States cracks down on crypto privacy projects, CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden issued a "final warning" regarding Bitcoin privacy. He posted on the X platform: For ten years I have been warning Bitcoin developers that privacy needs to be provided at the protocol level. This is the final warning; time is running out.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, Bitcoin non-profit organization Brink co-founder Mike Schmidt stated that the FBI issued a subpoena requesting personal information of attendees from the 2022 Bitcoin Core developers' activities. It is alleged that the FBI's subpoena is related to Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr's claim that approximately 216 BTC were stolen from him during a hacking incident. Mike stated that he is unaware of any details regarding the investigation and does not know whether the subpoena targets specific suspects or is for general information collected during the investigation.It is reported that Mike has provided the FBI with the attendees' first and last names, GitHub usernames, and email addresses. Mike also mentioned that the FBI requested him not to disclose the subpoena for a year; however, the non-disclosure period for the subpoena recently expired.Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr claimed that he lost over 200 BTC due to a Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) key leak incident on December 31, 2022, with estimated losses at around $3.3 million at that time. At current market value, 200 BTC is worth over $14 million.

ChainCatcher news, the Layer 1 Foundation has formed a Bitcoin Developer Alliance, planning to jointly draft the BRC-20 token guidelines. This Monday, the Layer 1 Foundation announced a new governance body, focusing on ensuring trust and transparency in the protocol, which it claims is crucial for future growth.The Layer 1 Foundation was co-founded by BRC-20 creator Domo, with participation from Hiro, Alex Labs, Oyl Dynamics, Allium Labs, and UTXO Management. Additionally, Bitcoin wallet developer Unisat and Ordinals aggregator Best in Slot will jointly lead the maintenance of the BRC-20 protocol.In its resolution, the foundation members committed to achieving a series of goals, including pursuing simplicity in technical architecture, adopting a security-first approach when changing the protocol or its indexers, promoting mutual discussions, considering the community in the pursuit of developmental changes, and making protocol-level changes open source.

According to ChainCatcher news, VanEck will donate 5% of the profits from its spot Bitcoin ETF (HODL) to the nonprofit organization Brink for at least 10 years, with no conditions attached. Brink will have full control and discretion over these resources to support Bitcoin developers.

ChainCatcher news, investment management firm VanEck stated on platform X that it will donate 5% of the profits from its spot Bitcoin ETF to support the Bitcoin core development organization Brink for at least 10 years.

ChainCatcher message, Bitcoin developer 0xB10C posted that six Bitcoin transactions from OFAC-sanctioned addresses were recently detected as not being mined by some mining pools, which may indicate that these transactions were intentionally filtered. In September and October 2023, the tool found missing OFAC-sanctioned transactions in six blocks mined by ViaBTC, Foundry USA pool, and F2Pool. After investigation, 0xB10C believes that the missing transactions in ViaBTC and Foundry USA pools may be false positives rather than due to filtering.However, the missing transactions in four blocks from F2Pool are likely to have been intentionally filtered. These transactions are all large transactions that consolidate multiple inputs into a single output, with at least one input coming from an OFAC-sanctioned address.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin security researcher and developer Antoine Riard has withdrawn from the development of the Lightning Network due to security issues and fundamental challenges facing the Bitcoin ecosystem. He believes the Bitcoin community is facing a "difficult dilemma," as a new type of alternative loop attack puts the Lightning Network in a "dangerous situation."It is reported that the alternative loop attack is a new type of attack where attackers can exploit inconsistencies between various memory pools to steal funds from payment channel participants. He pointed out that addressing this new type of attack may require changes to the underlying Bitcoin network, "These types of changes require maximum transparency and consensus from the entire community, as we are altering the full node processing requirements or the security architecture of the decentralized Bitcoin ecosystem."