Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Update on DLCs (new mailing list)

From: Nadav Kohen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 16:17:36 -0600

Hi all,

A Discreet Log Contract (DLC) is a Bitcoin-compatible oracle contract
enabling transactions to be contingent on signatures broadcasted by some
set of oblivious oracles. This scheme is a contracting building block that
enables a variety of applications such as disintermediated betting,
hedging, financial contracts, and even such things as synthetic assets.

I am excited to announce that there is now a dlc-dev mailing list (
https://mailmanlists.org/mailman/listinfo/dlc-dev) for anyone who wants to
follow or participate in work related to Discreet Log Contracts! Here is
the repository which has links to many resources including blog posts and
the white paper: https://github.com/discreetlogcontracts/dlcspecs.

We also have monthly specification meetings on the first Tuesday of every
month, if you are interested in attending and do not have an invite feel
free to reach out.

In case you haven't been following recent progress in DLCs, here's a quick
(incomplete) list of updates:

* We are using ECDSA Adaptor signatures, soon to be PR'd to secp256k1-zkp:
https://github.com/discreetlogcontracts/dlcspecs/pull/114.

* We have defined TLV-serializations for messages (like Lightning) required
to set up DLCs between parties (including messages from oracles).

* We have multiple compatible DLC implementations.

* We have specified (and implemented) compression algorithms which make
DLCs that are contingent on numeric outcomes (such as prices) practical and
expressive enough to support any payout curve.

* We have specified (and implemented) algorithms which allow users to use a
threshold t-of-n oracles, even supporting numeric cases where some bounded
difference is permitted between oracles.

* We are aiming to have a more stable v0 tag/release of the specification
in a few months!

Best,
Nadav Kohen