Changing consensus and more - Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #391

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #391 is here:

- links to work on a constant-time parallelized UTXO database
- summarizes a new high-level language for writing Bitcoin Script
- describes an idea to mitigate dust attacks
- covers the SHRINCS 324-byte stateful post-quantum signatures with static backups paper
- highlights discussion to address remaining points on BIP54
- summarizes the Falcon post-quantum signature scheme proposal
- links to research showing SLH-DSA verification can compete with ECC
- Optech Newsletter #391 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/

Toby Sharp posted to Delving Bitcoin about his latest project, a custom, highly parallel UTXO database, with constant-time queries, called Hornet UTXO(1)...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#a-constant-time-parallelized-utxo-database

Hyunhum Cho wrote on Delving Bitcoin about his work on Bithoven which is an alternative to miniscript...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#bithoven-a-formally-verified-imperative-language-for-bitcoin-script

Bubb1es posted to Delving Bitcoin about a way to dispose of dust attacks in onchain wallets...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#discussion-of-dust-attack-mitigations

Following-up on the Hash-based Signature Schemes for Bitcoin, Jonas Nick detailed on Delving Bitcoin a specific hash-based quantum-resistant signature algorithm with potentially useful properties for use in Bitcoin...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#shrincs-324-byte-stateful-post-quantum-signatures-with-static-backups

Antoine Poinsot wrote about the remaining points of discussion for the consensus cleanup soft fork...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#addressing-remaining-points-on-bip54

Giulio Golinelli posted on the mailing list proposing a fork to enable Falcon signature verification to Bitcoin...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#falcon-post-quantum-signature-scheme-proposal

Conduition wrote about his ongoing work benchmarking his post-quantum SLH-DSA verification implementation against libsecp256k1...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/02/06/#slh-dsa-verification-can-compete-with-ecc

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 17:30 UTC.