Fedi ships direct payments from Stable Balance, sidestepping regulatory walls
Fedi v26.1.0 eliminates a friction point for non-technical users: direct payments from ecash without converting to Bitcoin first, positioning federated custody as the post-MiCA alternative to vanishing custodial wallets.
Cryptographers propose trustless proof for data marketplace payments
A new zero-knowledge system called ZK-Value would let data contributors cryptographically verify their earnings in AI training pipelines without trusting the operator's math.
Fedimint v0.11 ships gateway recovery via mnemonic
Fedimint released v0.11 'Mint Condition' on April 21, 2026, adding mnemonic-based gateway recovery—the first real backup story for Lightning-connected ecash federations, directly addressing operator risk.
Bitcoin Core 31.0 Ships Private Transaction Broadcasting
Bitcoin Core 31.0, released April 20, 2026, adds a toggle for routing all transaction broadcasts through Tor or I2P, severing the IP-address-to-transaction link that chain analysis firms have relied on for years.
Fedimint v0.11.0 Ships Gateway Recovery via Mnemonic
Fedimint released v0.11.0 on April 17, 2026, with gateway recovery from seed phrases and NAT-transparent networking — removing the last major operational barrier to running community Bitcoin banking infrastructure.
Counterfeit Ledger Hardware Hits Chinese E-Commerce at Official Prices
A Brazilian researcher disclosed a sophisticated counterfeit Ledger Nano S Plus with embedded WiFi and Bluetooth sold via Chinese e-commerce platforms April 17, 2026—a hardware-level supply-chain attack distinct from and more dangerous than the concurrent $9.5M fake-app theft.
UK Ofcom Encryption Backdoor Deadline Arrives; Signal Threatens Exit
UK regulator Ofcom has reached its April 2026 deadline to publish guidance on forcing encrypted messaging services to scan private communications. Signal says it will leave the country rather than comply.
Texas Court Leaves Developer Legal Status Unresolved; Congress Now Only Path
A federal court refused to rule whether non-custodial Bitcoin developers are protected from money-transmitter prosecution, leaving the legal gray area that chilled Phoenix Wallet unresolved—forcing builders to bet on the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act.
Fedimint v0.11 ships NAT traversal, unlocking home mint deployment
Fedimint v0.11.0-beta.1 integrates Iroh networking to let guardians run community Bitcoin mints behind firewalls without port forwarding, making one-click deployment on Start9 and Umbrel possible for non-technical operators.
HRF Distributes 1.5B Satoshis Across 26 Freedom Tech Projects
Human Rights Foundation's largest Bitcoin Development Fund round ever — 1.5 billion satoshis to 26 grantees — funds privacy infrastructure, remittance bridges, and activist networks across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
BPI, Fedi, Cornell Launch First Empirical Study of Financial Privacy Behavior
The Bitcoin Policy Institute, Fedi, and Cornell University's Tech Policy Institute are publishing the first of four semi-annual reports on how Americans perceive financial privacy and how regulation shapes developer behavior, with Report 1 due April 2026.