04-17-2026Price:

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Craig Raw's Silent Payments slash Bitcoin privacy friction

Friday, April 17, 2026 · from 4 podcasts
4 SOURCESNostr CompassCitadel DispatchNo SolutionsUngovernable Misfits
  • Craig Raw accelerates Bitcoin privacy with GPU scanning, making Silent Payments viable for mobile wallets.
  • Developers abandon Tor and Docker for faster, more hackable sovereign stacks like StartOS and Shadow.
  • AI assistants resist low-level sovereign coding, forcing developers to use adversarial prompts.

The push for digital sovereignty is moving from philosophical debate to pragmatic engineering. Developers are fixing the bottlenecks that made privacy tools slow and frustrating.

Craig Raw, creator of Sparrow Wallet, solved a core speed problem for Bitcoin's Silent Payments. The protocol requires scanning every blockchain transaction to find your funds, a process that could take a phone nine hours. Raw moved the math to GPUs, achieving a 14x speedup. This makes public servers viable and lets mobile wallets use the tech without draining batteries.

“The scanning time was the real barrier. By leveraging GPUs, we cut what used to take hours down to seconds, which makes this usable for everyone.”

- Craig Raw, Citadel Dispatch

Parallel efforts are dismantling the walled gardens of mobile and home networking. Justin Moon is building Shadow, a mobile OS that boots directly to user space on a Pixel 4a using Rust and TypeScript. His goal is to integrate sovereign primitives like Lightning and Nostr at the OS level, making apps mere TypeScript files sent via Nostr DMs.

On the home front, StartOS is ditching its reliance on the slow, unreliable Tor network. The 0.4 release introduces StartTunnel, a VPS-based proxy for fast Clearnet access that obfuscates the home IP. The team is also replacing Docker with lighter LXC containers and building a router OS to secure the network's edge.

A common adversary in this work is artificial intelligence. Moon found that LLMs, trained on mainstream code, reflexively push developers back toward high-level, permissioned APIs. To build low-level drivers, he uses a “burn the boats” prompting strategy, explicitly forbidding standard paths to force niche implementations.

“AI models are saturated with standard Android and Java code. They struggle to assist with low-level tasks and drag you back to the permissioned path of least resistance.”

- Justin Moon, No Solutions

The next hurdles are hardware integration and distribution. Raw is calling on hardware wallet makers to adopt new standards so Silent Payments can protect cold storage. Meanwhile, projects like Amethyst are rewriting core libraries in-house to escape dependency on potentially malicious upstream code. The movement is no longer about ideology. It is a race to build the viable alternatives.

Digital SovereigntyOpen SourceAI & Tech
AmethystBitcoinDockerNostrTypeScript

Source Intelligence

- Deep dive into what was said in the episodes

Nostr Compass
Nostr Compass

Nostr Compass #17 • Apr 16

  • Amethyst transitioned to RT Tor, a Rust implementation of the Tor network, resolving previous crashing issues caused by outdated cTor bindings.
  • Amethyst version 1.7.3 improved video playback UI and migrated badges and bookmarks to new NIP kind numbers for compatibility with updated standards.
  • Amethyst is re-implementing MLS and Marmot protocols and a new secp256k1 library in pure Kotlin, based on published test vectors, aiming for encrypted direct messaging and Schnorr signature support.
  • Amethyst is developing NIP-AC for peer-to-peer WebRTC voice/video calls over Nostr, with two competing approaches being WebRTC and the newer, potentially more performant media over QUIC.
  • Nostralgia version 1.27 introduced video recording and editing, animated GIF support for profiles, new keyboard shortcuts, and private replies within direct messages.
  • Note-Tek version 0.10 Beta integrated the Zap Store's Nostr-based app update mechanism, enabling automatic application updates, which is generally good for security but raises concerns about user control and enshittification.
  • Amber's 6.00 pre-release introduced per-connection keys for NIP-46 remote signing, enhancing security by isolating compromises, and also added automatic updates via the Zap Store NIP.
  • Nostria released a new native mobile app using the Tauri Rust framework for Linux, macOS, and Windows, featuring improved Amber/Aegis NIP55 signer integration and a focus on social sharing previews.
  • Sandré is developing Nostria version 4 with integrated local AI models, including Google's Gemma 4 running in-browser for chat and image generation, and future plans for Nostr-based AI agents.
  • Titan version 0.1.0 launched a new internet browser with native Nsite capability, allowing pubkeys to publish websites via Nostr events and registering names permanently on-chain using Bitcoin transaction op-returns.
  • Bickl version 1.5.0, a decentralized cycling tracker, added background GPS tracking for GrapheneOS and integrated eCash transactions via Nutsapps, enabling scavenger hunt features with digital tokens.
  • Sprout, a Slack-like communications platform by Bloq, uses Nostr and Blossom for chat rooms, NIP-42 for authentication, NIP-29 for group management, and natively integrates AI agents via a Goose instance.
  • Mesh LLM version 0.56.0, a distributed LLM inference system, uses Nostr key pairs for node identities and coordinates AI computation across machines, presenting potential for L402 Lightning payments.
  • NostrVPN added exit node support, allowing servers to act as privacy-enhancing exit nodes for WireGuard tunnels, synchronizing invites and aliases over Nostr, and released an Umbrel package.
  • A proposal for NIP 24 suggests adding `published_at` and `created_at` timestamps to all replaceable events, distinguishing original creation from last edit, which would simplify tracking user join dates.
  • OpenSats announced its 16th wave of Nostrgrants, funding Amethyst Desktop, Nostermail, Nostrord (a Kotlin multiplatform NIP-29 client), Nuru Nuru (a Japanese client), and renewing Hamster's grant.
Also from this episode: (14)

Social Media (1)

  • Social version 0.15 allows scheduling recording sessions for live streams and enables viewers to create TikTok-style vertical video clips from shows.

Protocol (7)

  • Nymchat reverted its Marmot protocol integration for NIP-17 group chats due to the lack of proper multi-device support, highlighting the importance of this feature for cross-platform clients.
  • NUC, the Nostr Army Knife, updated to version 0.19.5 with Blossom multi-server support for parallel uploads/downloads, a new key command, and native support for the outbox model.
  • Snort's security audit led to fixes for Schnorr signature verification and NIP46 relay message forgery protection, alongside improvements in PIN encryption, batch verification, and lazy loading.
  • Relator, a Web of Trust scoring engine, introduced a scheme for writing validators in the ELO functional programming language, publishing them as Kind 765 events on Nostr, and launched a plugin marketplace.
  • NIP-17 for private direct messaging replaced NIP4 to address metadata leakage and weaker encryption, utilizing NIP44 for encryption and NIP59 (Giftwrap) for metadata protection, with randomized `created_at` timestamps.
  • NIP-17's Giftwrap uses an unsigned 'rumor event' (Kind 14) wrapped in a signed 'seal' (Kind 13) and then an outer ephemeral 'seal' (Kind 1059) to protect sender identity, though it lacks post-compromise or forward secrecy.
  • NIP-46, the Nostr remote signing protocol (NSEC-Bunker), allows clients to request signatures from an application holding the NSEC via Kind 24133 events and NIP44 encryption, using JSON-RPC-like structures.

AI Infrastructure (1)

  • White Noise switched from BlurHashes to ThumbHashes for image previews, significantly reducing size while increasing quality, and progressed on NIP55 push notifications and cursor-based chat message pagination.

Nostr (5)

  • Perser, a Nostr-native payments daemon and invoicing software, is integrating MDK for encrypted merchant-to-customer messaging, and adding Stripe and Square as payment providers, leveraging Marmot encryption.
  • NIP 58 Badges was merged, separating badges (Kind 10008, replaceable) from badge sets (Kind 30008) to simplify querying and management.
  • A new NIP-AC proposal for peer-to-peer voice/video calls migrates encryption to NIP44/NIP59, supports mesh groups, and is not backwards compatible with the older NIP-100.
  • NIP 340 is a new proposal for Frost quorum communications, defining how to coordinate Schnorr threshold signatures (multisig) using Nostr relays to transport ceremony messages.
  • NIP 5D proposes Nostr web applets for interactive web applications running in sandboxed iframes, communicating with a hosting shell to sign messages or interact with relays without direct key access.
PrivacyProtocolOpen SourceStartupsBTC Markets
Citadel Dispatch
Citadel Dispatch

CD199: CRAIG RAW - SILENT PAYMENTS AND SPARROW WALLET • Apr 13

Also from this episode: (12)

Protocol (12)

  • Craig Raw argues Bitcoin's HD wallet system, introduced in 2013 via BIP32, improved address generation but still suffers from high address reuse, which degrades network-wide privacy.
  • Craig Raw cites evidence that 25-35% of Bitcoin addresses are reused, a rate that can spike to 50% during bull markets. This reuse creates a negative privacy externality for all users.
  • Silent payments aim to provide a static, reusable payment code while enforcing fresh addresses for each transaction, aligning privacy with convenience.
  • Craig Raw explains BIP47, an earlier static payment code solution, failed to gain broad adoption primarily because it lacked hardware wallet support, requiring the private key for address derivation.
  • Silent payments solve the HD wallet gap limit issue, which can cause wallets to miss transactions if too many future addresses are queried without payment.
  • The primary technical challenge for silent payments is client-side scanning cost. Early implementations required hours of computation, making them impractical for average users.
  • Craig Raw developed Frigate, a server-side solution that uses GPU acceleration to reduce silent payment scanning from hours to seconds, enabling potential public server support.
  • Full hardware wallet support for silent payments requires implementing new BIPs, including BIP376 for spending, and discrete log equivalence proofs to prevent coordinator fraud.
  • Multisig wallets cannot currently send to silent payment addresses, though Craig Raw suggests an intermediate transaction workaround is possible but not yet implemented.
  • BIP353 allows combining a static on-chain silent payment address and a static Lightning invoice into a single human-readable identifier like user@domain.com, verified via DNSSEC.
  • Craig Raw calls for three ecosystem groups to adopt silent payments: hardware wallet vendors to implement standards, node/Electrum server operators to run scanning services, and individuals to test the technology.
  • Odell cites OpenSats' logistical burden of managing 200 unique addresses for monthly grant payouts as a prime use case for a static silent payment address.
PrivacyProtocolAdoption
No Solutions
No Solutions

No Solutions

23: Shipping Violently w/ Justin Moon • Apr 13

  • Justin Moon is building a mobile operating system called Shadow to maximize hackability and user control, rejecting the permissioned, sandboxed models of iOS and mainstream Android.
  • His development philosophy prioritizes removing abstraction layers and working close to the bare metal, a heuristic he calls 'agentic engineering', even if it temporarily reduces productivity.
  • The goal for Shadow is to provide a platform where users can 'vibe code' their own apps in TypeScript, distributing them like DMs without app store gatekeeping or complex build infrastructure.
  • Justin develops Shadow using two approaches: booting a Pixel 4a with minimal Android code, and incrementally replacing components like the GPU compositor on a running, rooted Android system.
  • The project uses Nix for its deterministic build system, requiring contributors to have Nix installed to compile and flash the OS onto a rooted Pixel 4a or run it in a KVM emulator.
  • Justin argues past Linux phone projects failed because their builders weren't daily phone users and lacked a compelling vision for mobile apps, unlike the Nostr community where a third of users in one poll used GrapheneOS.
  • The Phipps protocol aims to replace permissioned identity systems like DNS and IP addresses with a cryptographic networking layer, allowing both overlay networks on existing internet and offline mesh networks.
  • Justin is skeptical of building encrypted group chat (like his project Pika) entirely on Nostr relays due to metadata leaks and coordination issues, and is exploring simpler, server-based signaling with Nostr identities.
  • He observes that AI agent capabilities have reached a threshold where non-programmers, including project managers and designers in the Sovereign Engineering cohorts, can now successfully build and demo software.
Also from this episode: (3)

Lightning (1)

  • Shadow aims to solve the UX fragmentation of Bitcoin/Lightning by providing a single, system-level Lightning node and wallet that all apps can plug into, eliminating the need for separate wallet setups per application.

Coding (1)

  • He built demo apps including a cash wallet, a Nostr client, a photos app, and a podcast player, each around 500 lines of TypeScript, to validate the platform and move beyond basic graphics demos.

Agents (1)

  • He envisions a future where personal AI agents, not users, handle maintenance and payments for ephemeral cloud compute, creating a sustainable monetization model for permissionless services.
AgentsCodingAI InfrastructureBig Tech
Ungovernable Misfits
Ungovernable Misfits

Cryptosquid Unpacks the NEW StartOS | FREEDOM TECH FRIDAY 36 • Apr 11

  • The StartOS registry system now includes a separate community registry for user-packaged services. The official StartNine registry contains fully vetted and supported packages.
  • CryptoSquid says the new SNPK package format simplifies service creation, enabling AI-assisted packaging. Users can sideload personal packages or submit them for the community registry.
Also from this episode: (8)

AI Infrastructure (7)

  • CryptoSquid explains that StartOS 0.4 enables remote Clearnet access via a local IP and port or a new StartTunnel gateway service, a major shift from relying solely on Tor onion services.
  • The StartTunnel feature requires installing a router on a separate, user-purchased VPS to obfuscate a home server's IP and allow Clearnet access with a custom domain. CryptoSquid notes cheap, less-KYC VPS options exist.
  • CryptoSquid states the StartOS 0.4 update is a complete OS rewrite, taking about five hours. It requires stopping all services and creating a full backup before proceeding.
  • A new SMTP service allows StartOS to send emails for user management in apps like Vaultwarden. Future notifications for node health could utilize this or a separate NTFY service.
  • The upcoming StartWRT router OS, built on a RISC-V architecture and a forked OpenWRT, is designed for easy point-and-click privacy management. It can be installed on compatible hardware like a GL-iNet Flint.
  • StartOS moved from Docker/Podman to LXC containers for the backend, which CryptoSquid states makes the system smoother and causes fewer issues.
  • Planned features include automatic and remote backups to services like Proton Drive or other StartOS servers, as well as expandable external storage support.

BTC Markets (1)

  • CryptoSquid advises that running Bitcoin and other services on one Dockerized server is safe for most users, as the attack surface is low. Paranoid users can run separate dedicated servers.
Open SourcePrivacyProtocolStartups