Mohd Zaid

from student to protocol contributor ⚡️ @zaidmstrr started working on braidpool during @summerofbitcoin 2025, and is now supported by @HRF and @OpenSats to push forward a more decentralized mining future. proud to see this path unfold!

Thanks to @HRF for funding me in the direction of decentralized mining. The support ensures that the work in security, privacy, and human rights will continue.

⛏️ Traditional mining pools rely on a central authority, making co-option possible @braidpool is a P2P pool where miners collaboratively build blocks without a central operator HRF supports dev @zaidmstrr to contribute to a more decentralized & transparent mining model

@ayushbansal2407 Thanks for confirming. Yes, sharing a high-level overview seems good because it will hold the integrity of the program for future aspirants.

@zaidmstrr I just confirmed with the team, high level are fine

On 12 Jan 2026, the BOSS challenge officially started. This is not a usual cohort. No one tells you what to do. Anyone can contribute, and everyone is there to guide. A real open source experience. Challenge 1: given a descriptor and a blockchain, compute the confirmed wallet balance by writing a program with a hard-coded tprv that executes the required bitcoin-cli RPCs and returns the balance as a float with 8 decimal places. The program runs against Bitcoin Core on a private signet with wallet disabled, so RPCs like importdescriptor fail. Local verification is allowed.

Congratulations to @zaidmstrr for receiving a grant to work on Braidpool! The Audit Mode he's been working on supports the creation of a hashrate derivatives market, a key piece of infrastructure in bitcoin that most mature commodities markets have. #braidpool" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">opensats.org/blog/fifteenth…

FIFTEENTH WAVE OF BITCOIN GRANTS Our latest wave of grants supports a mix of protocol research, infrastructure maintenance, privacy wallets, and mining, that benefits Bitcoin’s resilience as an open monetary network. opensats.org/blog/fifteenth…

Bitcoin might be down in price, but the number of PR's merged goes up. Join @btcinsider__ today to read about what has happened with Bitcoin Core in This Week in Bitcoin Core Be sure to read the full article below 👇

.@zaidmstrr is awarded starter grant for @braidpool - decentralized mining pool where miners handle share accounting, payouts & tx selection themselves. He’ll spend next 6 months hardening reliability, improving coordination logic & advancing scalable, verifiable mining infra!

Congratulations to Braidpool contributor and @bitshala_org grantee @zaidmstrr on getting his second PR merged into Bitcoin Core! x.com/KevKevPal/stat…

✨New follow-up bitcoin-core change opprotunity✨ 📢mentioned in: #32821 rpc: Handle -named argument parsing where '=' character is used github.com/bitcoin/bitcoi… "> I'm wondering if there's a different way we can go about this without adding another table of arguments that need special treatment. I'm also not a fan of separate tables and suggested the following change to unify them earlier: b998cc52d51b48db9271fdba0bd69e9aaccb7999 ([tag](github.com/ryanofsky/bitc…)). This change is just a refactoring and could be a followup. > Perhaps we could move named argument handling and string to json conversion server side? I think moving logic server side would avoid need for duplicate tables, but not actually make the code or logic simpler because the current syntax for distinguishing named parameters is inherently ambiguous. (It probably would have been better to require named parameters to begin with `-` to avoid ambiguity. It could also be better to try to parse *every* argument as JSON and just fall back to passing strings if they are not valid JSON to avoid the need for the conversion table.) I feel like current PR just makes some small tweaks to parsing to make the current syntax work a little better, and it adds good test coverage. If we follow up this PR with b998cc52d51b48db9271fdba0bd69e9aaccb7999 or incorporate those changes here, the client code should be better documented and more maintainable too." - ryanofsky

BREAKING: Google's quantum chip computed a 150-year problem in 2 hours—and proved it. Nature confirmed today: Willow achieved verifiable quantum advantage, meaning physics validates its answers. At 13,000× classical speed with 99.9% fidelity across 105 qubits, it's not just calculating faster—it's perceiving molecular structures that were mathematically invisible until this morning.

New breakthrough quantum algorithm published in @Nature today: Our Willow chip has achieved the first-ever verifiable quantum advantage. Willow ran the algorithm - which we’ve named Quantum Echoes - 13,000x faster than the best classical algorithm on one of the world's fastest supercomputers. This new algorithm can explain interactions between atoms in a molecule using nuclear magnetic resonance, paving a path towards potential future uses in drug discovery and materials science. And the result is verifiable, meaning its outcome can be repeated by other quantum computers or confirmed by experiments. This breakthrough is a significant step toward the first real-world application of quantum computing, and we're excited to see where it leads.

Bitcoin Buying Ad on The Times of India Front Page

Bitcoin Core v 30 is good for Bitcoin.

Braidpool endorses this statement. Tx relay filters don't prevent txs from being mined, but do cause blocks to be slower to verify while nodes download missing txs. Filtooring/Knots is a net negative for the network and these devs made the right choice x.com/rodarmor/statu…

@KevKevPal They don't even know what they are doing.

Everyday I see them explaining and it's never understood. I feel like I'm stuck in a time loop

@callebtc Good to see that people like you still exist and understand all that fake psychology played by others.

Many seem to be misunderstanding some of the fundamental principles with which Bitcoin open-source development has been working with for over 15 years. Let me clarify, respectfully: - Core is a group of professionals that cares about Bitcoin as a monetary system more than any other group that exists. - Changing OP_RETURN limits has nothing to do with JPGs but was prompted by second-layer solutions that make Bitcoin more useful as money, not "arbitrary data storage". That's a made-up argument, and inscriptions will always be more "useful" for JPGs (I hate JPGs personally). - The devs don't work for you. You don't pay them, you don't control them, you don't elect them, you don't hire them, nor can you fire them. This is how open-source has always worked. If you want to change something, you need to persuade other devs in the professional arena, in a professional setting. Not by causing drama on socials or brigading GitHub. - The devs don't need the permission or consensus of "the plebs" - whatever that means. They need consensus amongst themselves only. - Even if it were so, there is no way to measure the "consensus of plebs" or even define who they are. Opinions in Bitcoin are expressed by running software, not by voting. It's technically and philosophically impossible to measure "the consensus of plebs". We don't vote. - Even if you could measure it, the "consensus of plebs" clearly shows that the vast majority of users support Core. Knots is a niche opinion and most people wouldn't want to run it. 17% (which can't be proven, i.e. could be fake) is not "consensus". - The most important part: BITCOIN GIVES YOU AGENCY. YOU ARE ALREADY FREE. It's beautiful and people seem to misunderstand what this whole thing is about. You can't force anyone to upgrade their software, anyone can choose to run whatever they want. You control your destiny, it's not the team of Core or Luke or anybody else. You are responsible for what you do. I respect you. These are points I'd make to anyone else having this debate. I'm not worried about Bitcoin's success, and it's not meant to sound alarmist. Peace.

Tarek El Diwany has finally republished an updated version of his book The Problem with Interest. You can get your copy from his website: theproblemwithinterest.com cc: @allenf32 @SafdarAlam @MBitcoiner @harris_irfan @ZabAkbar