The Bitcoin Brief Goes LIVE | THE BITCOIN BRIEF 79

A bi-weekly news show informing you on the latest in Bitcoin, privacy and open source tech hosted by Ungovernables, Max and Q.

AOB Prime Time reminder (FTF + Week 3) Vegas coming up NEWS Roman Storm Acquittal?? - The RageRule 29 hearing in SDNY. Retrial dates floated: Oct, Nov, Jan 2027. Gov theory: running Tornado Cash was criminal, but mixers aren't illegal and it wasn't criminal at inception. Failla: so when did liability start? Gov collapsed UI and protocol. Claimed Tornado Cash itself transferred funds — user wallets as "instrumentalities." Only 15% of volume was illicit across the charged period. Failla to prosecutor: "I might argue you were doing better before you started talking."

BIP-361 - LinkNew proposal from Jameson Lopp and others (submitted 14 April) to protect Bitcoin from future quantum computers. Quantum computers could one day crack the cryptography Bitcoin uses today (ECDSA/Schnorr). BIP-361 forces everyone to move to new quantum-safe address types before that happens. Two phases: first, you can't send to old-style addresses. Five years later, old-style coins can't be spent at all. If you haven't moved your coins by then, they're frozen. Controversial because it means coins that don't migrate get effectively confiscated — including Satoshi's ~1M BTC and anything on lost seeds. Breaks Bitcoin's "your coins are yours forever" promise. BitMEX pushed back with a "wait and see" alternative: only freeze coins if quantum is actually proven to exist. Foundation angle: if you hold your own keys, you just migrate when new address types ship. The people at risk are exchange users, lost-seed holders, and very old wallets.

Bitcoin Depot Hacked - 50.9 BTC ($3.7M) Stolen - Bitcoin Magazine / SecurityWeekPublished: Breach detected March 23, disclosed April 8-9, 2026 Bitcoin Depot, the largest crypto ATM operator in the US (9,000+ machines, 47 states), lost 50.9 BTC after attackers gained control of credentials for digital asset settlement accounts. Customer data was not affected. SEC disclosure filed April 8. Talking points: Centralised custodians are honeypots. One set of credentials = nearly $4M gone. The 16-day gap between detection and disclosure is worth noting. Compare with self-custody where there is no single point of failure.

Kraken Insider Extortion - Support Staff Recruited by Criminal Groups - CoinDeskPublished: April 13, 2026 A criminal group is extorting Kraken after two insider incidents where support staff inappropriately accessed data from ~2,000 client accounts. No funds were at risk. Kraken warned of coordinated insider recruitment campaigns targeting crypto, gaming, and telecom firms. Talking points: Your exchange account is only as secure as the lowest-paid support worker with access to your data. This is organised, coordinated insider recruitment across multiple industries. Self-custody eliminates this counterparty risk entirely. Credit to Kraken for transparency and refusing to pay.

Fake Ledger Live app on Mac App Store - Coindesk$9.5M drained from 50+ victims between 7–13 April via fake Ledger Live macOS app on Apple's App Store. Hits across BTC, ETH, Tron, Solana, XRP. Three seven-figure losses — largest $3.23M USDT. Musician G. Love lost 5.9 BTC. Attack vector: app prompted users to enter recovery phrase. Game over. Published under "Leva Heal Limited." Faked version history 1.0 to 5.0 in two weeks to look legit. Passed App Review. Funds laundered through 150+ KuCoin deposit addresses tied to "AudiA6" mixer. KuCoin froze accounts until 20 April only.

UPDATES/RELEASES Aqua v0.4.2 - April 11Adds transaction notes (BIP329), fiat amount entry for Lightning payments, Sats display unit option, improved animations, GDK upgrade to 0.76.3. https://github.com/AquaWallet/aqua-wallet/releases/tag/v0.4.2

BTCPay Server v2.3.7 - April 2 (BORDERLINE)First release using .NET 10. Transaction comments in Send view, admin-editable subscription dates, amount-less BOLT11 invoices for top-ups, RTL language support