Quantum and changing consensus segment - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #412

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #412 is here:

• links to benchmarking around SLH-DSA STARK aggregation
• points to discussion of a paper on constructing hybrid strongly-unforgeable signature schemes
• examines lattice-based PQ signatures
• describes a proposal for public key recovery for P2MR EC leaves
• summarizes a thread on aligning privacy incentives in P2MR
• describes and alternative to banning all 64-byte transactions
• summarizes a proposal to trigger EC disabling with a NUMS point spend or hashrate majority
• Optech Newsletter #412 Podcast https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/

Remix7531 posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list his benchmark results for aggregating many SPHINCS signature verifications into a single STARK proof... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/#benchmarking-slh-dsa-stark-aggregation

Pieter Wuille posted to Delving Bitcoin about a EuroCrypt 2026 paper on constructing hybrid strongly-unforgeable signature schemes from a schnorr-like scheme and an arbitrary post-quantum signature scheme... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/#bird-of-prey-2-bop-2-non-malleable-schnorr-and-pq-signatures

Nikita Karetnikov posted to Delving Bitcoin and cross-posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about a Blockstream blog post comparing post-quantum signature families, where lattice-based schemes appear favorable on size and functionality... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/#lattice-based-signatures

starius posted to Delving Bitcoin a proposal to add a recoverable elliptic curve (EC) key leaf type to BIP360 (P2MR). The idea is to recover the EC public key from the schnorr signature... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/#public-key-recovery-for-p2mr-ec-leaves

Conduition posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a proposed BIP360 (P2MR) change to require every P2MR control block to include at least one 32-byte merkle authentication path (i.e. ban depth-zero script trees)... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/#aligning-privacy-incentives-in-p2mr

Jeremy Rubin posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a draft BIP proposing an alternative to the consensus cleanup (BIP54) rule making 64-byte witness-stripped transactions consensus-invalid... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/#prohibit-merkle-internal-node-preimages-that-encode-minimal-64-byte-transactions

Pieter Wuille wrote to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about codifying the expected future disabling of elliptic curve (EC) spending paths within new post-quantum output types such as BIP360 (P2MR) and P2TRv2... https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/07/03/#triggering-ec-disabling-with-a-nums-point-spend-or-hashrate-majority

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