LND v0.21 Forces Lightning Wallet Developers to Rewrite Payment Code
Lightning Labs released LND v0.21.0-beta.rc1, a major version that removes four legacy RPC endpoints and completes a SQL database migration — breaking any wallet still using deprecated payment APIs.
Bitcoin's Emergency Brake Could Lock You Out—Until Now
Olaoluwa Osuntokun shipped a working prototype quantum-resistant wallet rescue tool on April 8, solving a critical gap in Bitcoin's emergency defense plan that could otherwise strand 1.7 million BTC in users' own wallets.
Core Lightning v26.04 RC2 Ships Message Padding, Closes Privacy Gap
Core Lightning v26.04 RC2 (April 2, 2026) adds peer message padding to resist traffic analysis — the first Lightning implementation to ship uniform-length padding by default — plus user-facing splice commands and 20% smaller binaries.
Core Lightning v26.04 RC2: Splicing Graduates to Production
Core Lightning v26.04 RC2 promotes splicing from experimental to stable user-facing commands, enabling channel resizing without downtime. This moves Lightning toward true 'one-balance' wallets and cuts transaction costs in half.
Bitcoin Core v31.0rc2 Tagged as P2P Privacy Fix Targets Final Release
Bitcoin Core v31.0rc2 was tagged on March 25, 2026, with a final release targeting early April — and an OpenSats grant is driving a live fingerprinting-attack mitigation into the same codebase.
Core Lightning v26.04rc1 Ships splicein, spliceout, and BIP-39 Recovery
Core Lightning v26.04rc1, tagged March 26 2026, delivers purpose-built splice commands and BIP-39 seed phrases — closing the operational gaps that have kept self-sovereign Lightning node operation cumbersome.
BIP446 and BIP448 Enter Draft Status, Targeting LN-Symmetry
BIP446 (OP_TEMPLATEHASH) and BIP448 (Taproot-native Re-bindable Transactions), co-authored by Greg Sanders, Antoine Poinsot, and Steven Roose, formally entered Draft BIP status via GitHub PR #1974, the first complete Taproot-native covenant bundle to reach the official Bitcoin standards track.
LND Merges Onion Message Forwarding, Closing BOLT12 Gap with Core Lightning
Lightning Labs merged onion message forwarding into LND via PR #10089, the prerequisite capability for BOLT12 offers support and a direct challenge to Core Lightning's year-long lead on the protocol.
Core Lightning v26.04rc1 Debuts splicein and spliceout Commands
Core Lightning v26.04rc1, tagged March 26 2026, introduces high-level splicein and spliceout commands that abstract years of low-level splicing complexity into operator-ready RPC calls, marking a structural maturation of Lightning channel management.
BIP446 and BIP448 Draft BIPs Target LN-Symmetry via OP_TEMPLATEHASH
Bitcoin's BIP repository merged BIP446 and BIP448 as Draft BIPs, introducing OP_TEMPLATEHASH and a Taproot-native covenant bundle that could replace Lightning's penalty-based channel model with LN-Symmetry.