News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Researcher Robin Linus has released the Bitcoin Poker protocol, expanding the unfinished poker interface that Satoshi Nakamoto left in Bitcoin's early code in 2008 into a runnable solution. The protocol supports two players in Texas Hold'em without a dealer, using Bitcoin's existing rules to handle gameplay and fund settlement.Bitcoin Poker generates card faces through secret information jointly provided by both parties, generating only the 9 cards needed per hand, and uses cryptographic commitments and zero-knowledge proofs to maintain fair dealing. The protocol can check for duplicate cards, and the probability of a randomly generated hand passing the check is approximately 48%, requiring an average of 2.08 attempts.The protocol pre-builds a transaction tree for possible game outcomes, with a reference configuration containing 56,132 logical nodes and approximately 8.4 MB of preparation data. Normal gameplay occurs off-chain, with transactions used only to handle disputes when cooperation breaks down.If one party refuses to continue, a timeout mechanism can settle the committed pot after a specified delay and return the departing party's unused balance, but cannot force players to reveal their cards. The design requires no modifications to Bitcoin's consensus rules, supports only two participants, and still requires independent security review. (Bitcoin.com News)
According to Fortune magazine, as Kalshi and Polymarket accelerate coordination with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to crack down on insider trading, Robin Hanson—a founding theorist of prediction markets and economics professor at George Mason University—publicly voiced his disapproval, stating that “insider participation in trading” is precisely the core value underpinning prediction markets. Earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice charged a U.S. military servicemember with using classified intelligence to place bets on Polymarket regarding a Venezuelan raid operation, illegally profiting approximately $400,000. In response, Robin Hanson remarked: “You want them to trade. You want prices to be as accurate as possible—the market’s purpose is to aid decision-making.” Robin Hanson argues that, like all economic models, insiders will trade: informed participants buy “yes” contracts, thereby driving prices upward toward the truth. If insiders refrain from betting, the information-discovery function of prediction markets would be severely weakened, and such markets would fail to reflect real-world outcomes faster than news media or public opinion polls. Insider trading is likewise widespread in traditional financial markets, yet regulators address only a tiny fraction of cases. Prediction markets, like investigative journalism, are fundamentally mechanisms designed to accelerate information disclosure—and thus should not be subject to blanket prohibition. As a compromise, Robin Hanson proposes: any legislation banning government employees from participating in prediction market trading should, by the same logic, also prohibit them from speaking with journalists.