Holepunching, Changing Consensus - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #430

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #430 is here:

• summarizes continued discussion about using TCP hole punching to make nodes behind home routers reachable
• describes a draft BIP for standardizing the spending policies that co-signers enforce when emulating covenants
• follows up on continued discussion of BIP54
• links to an opt-in replay protection prototype
• summarizes a post-quantum transition that does not burn coins
• describes a 'Proof-of-decay' idea for unmigrated outputs
• notes the potential for BIP300 bundle censorship
• Optech Newsletter #430 Podcast https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/

Following our May summary of 0xB10C’s Delving Bitcoin thread on using hole punching to let nodes behind home routers accept connections from each other, 0xB10C posted that work has resumed on a specification and an experimental Bitcoin Core implementation... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/#continued-discussion-of-tcp-hole-punching-for-home-nodes

Luke Carriere posted to Delving Bitcoin about his proposal for standardizing the spending policies enforced by co-signers when emulating covenants... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/#bip-draft-for-standardized-co-signer-spending-policies

Antoine Riard posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about his perspective on the state of the consensus cleanup soft fork (BIP54)... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/#continued-discussion-of-bip54

Sjors Provoost followed up on the Delving Bitcoin thread about opt-in replay protection for a chain split with a prototype that uses a new witness version... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/#opt-in-replay-protection-prototype

James Tagg posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list five draft BIPs for QSAVE (Quantum Secure Asset Verification and Escrow), a post-quantum transition that does not burn coins... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/#qsave-for-unmigrated-coins

bitKingAE posted to Delving Bitcoin a sketch for shrinking post-quantum-exposed outputs, such as early P2PK coins, that are not moved within a grace period... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/#proof-of-decay-for-unmigrated-outputs

Ori Newman argued on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list that a miner with 26% of hashrate can censor a valid withdrawal bundle in the drivechains proposal (BIP300) indefinitely... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/11/06/#bip300-bundle-censorship

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 16:30 UTC.