WEDNESDAY, MAR11
1. Expanding nVersion, 2. Coinkite proof of reserves feature, 3. El Sultán de Bitcoin, 4. Reducing social violence
From Proto and Bitkey - part of the Bitcoin ecosystem at Block, Inc.
1. nversion
Bitcoin developer Matt Corallo has proposed a draft BIP that would expand the nVersion field available to miners as extra nonce space from 16 bits to 24 bits, replacing BIP 320 to address hashrate scaling constraints that have pushed some mining hardware to encroach on the nTime field. On Bitcoin Development Mailing List, the proposal reserves bits 5 through 28 of the block header nVersion field for nonce use, removing them from BIP8 and BIP9 soft-fork signaling. The existing 16-bit allocation allows fresh jobs to be served to an ASIC only once per second up to roughly 280 TH/s, a ceiling that modern hardware has already surpassed. Developer Antoine Poinsot confirmed the math, noting that the additional 8 bits would extend that threshold to 72 PH/s "without nTime rolling" while leaving 5 bits available for future soft-fork signaling. The proposal explicitly warns that future soft forks should avoid the reserved bits given that a non-trivial share of current hashrate already uses them. The draft formalizes what has become a de facto practice, trading a portion of upgrade signaling real estate for mining infrastructure headroom as ASIC performance continues to outpace the nonce space assumptions baked into earlier protocol design.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY2. proof
Coinkite has released firmware updates for both the COLDCARD Mk4 (v5.3.0) and COLDCARD Q (v1.4.0Q), with the headline addition being BIP-322 signing support for proof-of-reserve PSBTs, a feature the company notes has been requested since 2018. The update allows users to sign specialized PSBTs that cryptographically prove control over UTXOs without broadcasting a transaction, making the workflow suitable for audits and transparency reporting while remaining fully air-gapped. The release also adds import and export of up to 30 WIF private keys via microSD, v3 transaction compatibility, BIP-380 key expression export for multisig efficiency, and a new Input Explorer that surfaces detailed input data during the signing process. The v3 transaction support aligns COLDCARD with recent Bitcoin protocol updates relevant to developers building on the device. Taken together, the update moves COLDCARD closer to institutional-grade verification workflows. Proof-of-reserve signing has historically required custodians and exchanges to rely on software-side tooling, and native hardware wallet support raises the security floor for anyone needing to produce verifiable attestations of bitcoin holdings without touching an online device.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY3. sultán
Alessandro Cecere, a Venezuelan bitcoin miner known as El Sultán de Bitcoin and now part of the Luxor Technologies team, is working to bring private and public mining companies to Venezuela to rebuild the country's neglected electrical grid. According to Frank Corva, who interviewed Cecere, the plan involves official agreements with the Venezuelan government under which mining firms would fund grid reconstruction in exchange for power rates between $0.01 and $0.02 per kWh. Cecere first built what he describes as likely the largest mining farm in Latin America between 2013 and 2015, leveraging Venezuela's then-subsidized near-zero electricity costs before using the proceeds to relocate his family as the economic crisis deepened. The proposed model mirrors the approach Gridless has used across African countries, where miners act as buyers of last resort for power, effectively subsidizing electricity costs for local populations. If the framework takes shape, it would represent one of the clearest cases yet of mining infrastructure doubling as energy development in a country where consistent power remains out of reach for many citizens.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY4. violence
Synonym CEO John Carvalho has published a detailed thesis framing the company's full product stack as infrastructure designed to reduce societal violence by eliminating the conditions that produce it. In his article, Carvalho argues that "privacy without physical safety is theater" and "financial sovereignty without credible exit is a slogan," positioning Synonym's Atomic Economy as a coherent system rather than a collection of standalone tools. The stack spans public-key identity (PKARR and Pubky Ring), trust-weighted social discovery (Semantic Social Graph), permissionless payments (Paykit on Bitcoin and Lightning), peer-to-peer credit (Atomicity), and conditional access controls (Pubky Locks), all routing through Bitcoin-native protocols. Carvalho contends the greatest risk is not technical failure but user indifference, noting that the system only works to the degree people participate. Every component listed is either shipped or shipping in 2026. The essay represents one of the more ambitious attempts to articulate a unified design philosophy across identity, payments, social coordination, and open finance built entirely on Bitcoin infrastructure.
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