Apps Against the Machine | THE BITCOIN BRIEF 84

A bi-weekly news show informing you on the latest in Bitcoin, privacy and open source tech hosted by Ungovernables, Max and Q. 





AOB

• Envoy 2.3.0
  • Full 2.3.0 out of beta: redesigned Send flow with inter-account transfers, message signing, Address Explorer, sub-satoshi fee rates, QR-density adjustment for Passport signing.
• Passport Prime 1.3.0-beta
  • Vault imports, BIP85 passwords, mass 2FA imports, universal QR scanner and loads of bug fixes
• Visual improvements to the docs site
• App showcase is now live

NEWS

• EU "Chat Control" — scanning derogation survives Parliament, permanent client-side-scanning law stalls again - TFTC: EU Chat Control, private message scanning, and Bitcoin's open protocols / Patrick Breyer: Chat Control

• Radar Chat launches: a Signal fork with self-custodial Lightning payments built in - Decrypt: Radar Chat wants to make sending Bitcoin as easy as firing off a text / Atlas21

• Bull Bitcoin sues the French Finance Ministry over DAC8/CARF crypto surveillance reporting - The Rage: French Finance Ministry sued over global surveillance database

• MiCA deadline forces a self-custody exodus: ~70% of departing Binance EU users chose self-custody over a licensed exchange - Blockonomi: Binance reveals 70% of EU users chose self-custody after MiCA / CoinDesk: Binance to stop EU services after failing to secure MiCA licence

• CLARITY Act developer safe-harbor (BRCA / Section 604) goes to the wire as Wyden fights to keep it intact - TFTC: Wyden, CLARITY Act, Section 604 developer safe harbor / Coin Center: The BRCA survived CLARITY's markup, do not give it up now

• BIP-110 data-filtering soft fork heads for its deadline with miner signaling near zero - CoinDesk: Bitcoin's BIP-110 fork deadline nears with miner support at zero / Bitcoin Optech #412

RELEASES

Bitcoin core / protocol

• Bitcoin Core 30.3 - 2026-07-10
  • Point release on the current 30.x line. Grab binaries from bitcoincore.org (deterministic + signed), not GitHub attachments.
• Bitcoin Core 29.4 - 2026-07-10
  • Maintenance release keeping the older stable branch patched for sovereign self-hosters.

Hardware / signing

• SeedSigner 0.8.7 "Summer of SeedSigner" - 2026-07-08
  • 80 PRs from 20 contributors: localization to 22 languages (first RTL language, Persian), BBQr PSBT decoding, and a big codebase professionalization pass. Airgapped DIY signing for a much wider audience.
• BitBox02 Firmware 9.26.4 - 2026-07-09
  • Small fix following the 9.26.3 security batch (out-of-bounds write fix, silent-payments and EIP-712 validation hardening). Paired with BitBoxApp 4.51.3.

Lightning

• Core Lightning 26.06.3 - 2026-07-09
  • Latest in-window CLN (a coincurve dep bump in pyln-proto superseded 26.06.2 from 06-30).
• lnd 0.20.2-beta - 2026-07-10
  • Maintenance release on the 0.20 branch, no migrations, built with go1.25.5. Follows the zero-timestamp DoS fix discussed last episode.
• LNbits 1.5.5 - 2026-07-08
  • Revolut + Square payment options, better payment reliability across backends, faster theming, cached rates, improved CSV exports and OIDC/SSO fixes. (A same-day 1.5.6 followed.)
• Zeus 13.1.2 - 2026-07-02
  • Bug fixes and UX polish: pasteable amount input, copy Lightning address, UTXO-picker label and LND address-generation fixes.

Ecash

• Cashu TS 4.7.0 - 2026-07-09
  • LTS release for the JS/TS Cashu library: NUT-29 batch quote checks plus fixes for malformed tokens and NUT-28 locking slots. Foundation layer for ecash wallets/mints.
• Cashu CDK 0.17.2 - 2026-06-29
  • Exposes NUT-27 mint backup through the wallet bindings; Android 16KB page-size and Swift compatibility. (A 0.17.3 with NIP-47/NWC support shipped 07-13.)

On-chain privacy / coinjoin

• Ashigaru Desktop 1.1.0 - 2026-07-11
  • Major redesign: dedicated Whirlpool mixing experience, private Electrum server discovery over Tor, card-based UTXO views with PayNym support, and a Whirlpool Stats tool. Post-Samourai sovereign coinjoin keeps shipping (this is a 1.0 -> 1.1 jump from last episode's launch).
• Wasabi Wallet 2.8.0 - 2026-06-27 [borderline, grace window]
  • P2P sync of compact block filters (drops the central-server dependency), pay-in-coinjoin, sub-1 sat/vByte fees, payment batching, and arm64 Linux/Tails/Whonix support.

P2P / no-KYC

• Bull Bitcoin 6.12.8 - 2026-07-11
  • Coins (UTXO) view, Coldcard NFC support, BitBox02 Nova Bluetooth on iOS, sub-1 sat/vByte fees, and swap recovery via mnemonic. Self-custody + non-KYC buy/sell.
• Aqua Wallet 0.5.1 - 2026-07-07
  • OpenCryptoPay QR compatibility, broader LNURL support, more reliable Lightning via direct Boltz broadcasting.
• Bisq 1.10.3 - 2026-07-06
  • Security update: disables filter-provided BTC nodes, hardens deposit-tx checks, and requires message signatures from the expected trade peer.
• Mostro Mobile 1.3.0 - 2026-07-03
  • Transport-protocol v2 migration and more African payment methods (KES, MZN, TZS, UGX, ZAR, ZMW). Nostr-native P2P Bitcoin trading, no KYC.
• BasicSwap DEX 0.17.0 - 2026-07-09
  • Cross-chain atomic-swap DEX. (A 0.17.1 patch followed 07-12.)
• Arkade 0.9.13 - 2026-07-07
  • Small indexer fix. Ark self-custodial off-chain scaling.

Self-hosting / infra

• umbrelOS 1.7.4 - 2026-07-10
  • Fixes connectivity where remote access over Tor and Tor-using apps could fail to connect.
• StartOS start-wrt 1.0.0 - 2026-07-11
  • First stable release of StartWRT, Start9's OpenWrt-based router OS. Sovereign networking layer to pair with a self-hosted server.

Nostr

• ngit-cli 2.6.3 - 2026-07-10
  • ngit init now gives actionable account-setup guidance. Git-over-Nostr tooling, directly relevant to the GitHub-exodus / censorship-resistant-code thread.

EDUCATION

• Evolving Casa's Defenses Against Social Engineering -
  • Practical writeup on how attackers social-engineer Bitcoin holders and how to defend. Pairs directly with the Lopp voice item for a self-custody-security segment listeners can act on.
• Bitcoin Privacy Tools Compared: CoinJoin vs PayJoin vs Silent Payments -
  • Clean side-by-side of the main on-chain privacy techniques. Good "where do I actually start" pointer, topical given the Ashigaru and Wasabi releases and the ongoing Silent Payments rollout (BIP 352 reached Complete and the secp256k1 module merged in June; Sparrow shipped SP receiving last fortnight).
• Cove Wallet tutorial (BTC Sessions) -
  • BTC Sessions walkthrough of the Cove wallet. Useful hands-on onboarding content if you want a "new self-custodian" education beat, which pairs with the MiCA self-custody-exodus news item.

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FOUNDATION

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CAKE WALLET

https://cakewallet.com

Cake Wallet is an open-source, non-custodial wallet available on Android, iOS, macOS, and Linux.

Features:
- Built-in Exchange: Swap easily between Bitcoin and Monero.
- User-Friendly: Simple interface for all users.

Monero Users:
- Batch Transactions: Send multiple payments at once.
- Faster Syncing: Optimized syncing via specified restore heights
- Proxy Support: Enhance privacy with proxy node options.