Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of Bitcoin
This podcast is hosted by Aaron van Wirdum, editor-in-chief of Bitcoin Magazine, and Sjors Provoost, a Bitcoin Core contributor. Together they explain the technical side of Bitcoin, taking one topic per episode. The show aims to make the underlying technology of Bitcoin accessible to a general audience, covering aspects like the protocol, cryptography, and how the network works. It's a deep dive for anyone wanting to understand Bitcoin beyond the price.
Episodes
Emergency broadcast: COLDCARD vulnerability
More information:https://blog.coinkite.com/coldcard-mk3-seed-generation-warning/https://blog.coinkite.com/entropy-technical-backgrounder/
Episode 100: Bitcoin Core 31
Aaron and Sjors discuss what's new in Bitcoin Core v31This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard.Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3
Episode 99: Bitcoin Core v30
Aaron and Sjors discuss what's new in Bitcoin Core v30
Episode 98: Return of the OP_RETURN
Aaron and Sjors discuss the proposal to remove the OP_RETURN limit from Bitcoin Core.This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard.Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5Sjors’ Nostr: nprofile1qyvhwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnnwpex7an0daehgtnwdshsqgyxsh477ejn8rwkjv0zen0ncxwe7rj6zpnujx8j9ecgrsj43786lqyul0f2
Episode 97: Bitcoin Core v29
Aaron and Sjors talk about the new Bitcoin Core 29.0 release..===This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard.Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5Sjors’ Nostr: nprofile1qyvhwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnnwpex7an0daehgtnwdshsqgyxsh477ejn8rwkjv0zen0ncxwe7rj6zpnujx8j9ecgrsj43786lqyul0f2
Episode 96: Mining Decentralization Update
Stratum v2, DATUM, Bitaxe, P2Pool and friends.
In Bitcoin, Explained 96, Aaron and Sjors discuss some recent innovations in mining, and in particular mining decentralization. Specifically, they discuss the Stratum V2 and DATUM mining protocols to decentralize transaction selection in mining pools, the open source hardware Bitaxe miner, and some recent proposals to make decentralized mining pools l
Episode 95: Bitcoin Core v28.0
In Bitcoin, Explained 95, Aaron and Sjors discuss the new Bitcoin Core 28.0 release. Specifically, they cover upgrades to Bitcoin’s testnet (testnet 4), new mempool policies, full RBF integration, the introduction of assume UTXO, improved wallet migration support and the implementation of block file XOR.
https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/
Release notes: https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/28.0/
Episode 94: Silent Payments part 2
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors welcome Ruben Somsen and Josie to the show to discuss BIP 352, their now-finalized Bitcoin Improvement Proposal for Silent Payments.
As previously discussed in episode 58, Silent Payments use a special type of addresses that allow senders to generate public keys for transaction recipients, in such a way that these recipients can in turn genera
Episode 93: The Great Consensus Cleanup Revival (And an Update on the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet Arrests)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss the Great Consensus Cleanup Revival soft fork(s). This proposal would fix some known bugs in the Bitcoin protocol, specifically the timewarp vulnerability, large block validation times, 64 byte transactions and BIP 30 verification.
Sjors also provides a quick update on the court case against Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev, and p
Episode 92: Bitcoin Core 27.0
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain what new features are included in the upcoming Bitcoin Core 27.0 release.
https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoin-devwiki/wiki/27.0-Release-Candidate-Testing-Guide
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This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard
Aaron's Twitter: @AaronvanW
Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw
Episode 91: Splicing
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors are once more joined by Breez developer Jesse de Wit, this time to explain splicing. Splicing allows users of the Lightning Network to effectively add or remove funds from an active channel, allowing for continuous payment and routing activity. Aaron, Sjors and Jesse discuss what challenges this entails, and how these challenges are overcome.
Episode 90: Asynchronous Lightning Payments
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors are joined by Breez developer Jesse de Wit to discuss asynchronous lightning payments. They explain why such payments would be useful, how they would work, and what building blocks are required to realize it. In the process, Aaron, Sjors and Jesse also cover the basics of PTLCs and Trampoline Payments.
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This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite,
Episode 89: B-money and RPOW
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss two more electronic cash projects that predate Bitcoin: Wei Dai’s b-money and Hal Finney’s RPOW. As detailed in Aaron’s new book, The Genesis Book, these systems introduced design elements that were later utilized by Satoshi Nakamoto. Aaron and Sjors explain what these elements are, and how the inspired Bitcoin’s design.
To buy Aaron’
Episode 88: Hashcash and Bit Gold
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss two electronic cash projects that predate Bitcoin: Adam Back’s Hashcash and Nick Szabo’s Bit Gold. As detailed in Aaron’s new book, The Genesis Book, these systems introduced design element that were later utilized by Satoshi Nakamoto. Aaron and Sjors explain what these elements are, and how they inspired Bitcoin’s design.
To buy Aaron
Episode 87: The Block 1,983,702 Problem
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss the so-called “block 1,983,702 problem”. They explain how a bug in early Bitcoin implementations could in rare cases cause a loss of funds, or in a worst-case scenario even lead to consensus failures, while they also explain how BIP 30 and BIP 34 solved this problem. As it turns out, however, BIP 34 introduced a new problem, that could
Episode 86: Ocean Tides
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain what features are offered by Ocean, the relaunched and rebranded Eligius mining pool. They discuss how payouts from this pool are (partially) non-custodial, how the block template creation is fully transparent, and how payout distribution is determined. Aaron and Sjors also briefly touch on the "spam" filtering employed by
Episode 85: Bitcoin Core 26.0 (And F2Pool’s OFAC Compliant Mining Policy)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain what new features are included in the upcoming Bitcoin Core 0.26 release. They also briefly discuss recent developments concerning the transaction inclusion policy of mining pool F2Pool, which appears to have been compliant with the OFAC sanctions list.
Link to testing guide: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoin-devwiki/wiki/26.0-Re
Episode 84: Marathon Pool’s Invalid Block (And Some Updates About the Show)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss an invalid block mined by Marathon Pool. They explain why the block was invalid, what caused it (and what didn’t), and why that didn’t affect the Bitcoin network.
Aaron and Sjors also provide some updates about the show, and what that means moving forward.
Finally, Sjors briefly mentions some notable Bitcoin Core updates that wer
Episode 83: The Milk Sad Vulnerability
In this episode, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) discuss a vulnerability in Libbitcoin dubbed “Milk Sad”, which allowed people to generate private key seeds with such weak entropy that their private keys could be brute forced and their coins stolen. Aaron and Sjors examine how this vulnerability (could have) ended up in Libbitcoin as well as in Andreas Antonopoulos’ book Mastering Bitcoin
Episode 82: Scaling to Billions of Users
In this episode, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) discuss a recent blog post by Bitcoin Core developer Anthony Towns (@ajtowns), “Putting the B in BTC”, in which he outlines a vision for scaling Bitcoin to facilitate billions of users. As Aaron and Sjors walk through the article, they explain what some of Towns’ proposed solutions are, and which tradeoffs they entail.Link to the blog post:
Episode 81: Bitcoin Core 25.0
In this episode, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) discuss Bitcoin Core 25.0, the latest major release of the Bitcoin Core software. They highlight four of the most notable changes: performance improvements concerning huge transaction loads, further Miniscript integration, a faster wallet re-scan, and the decreased 65-byte transaction limit policy rule.
For further reading on the reasoning
Episode 80: Stratum V2
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) are joined by Braiins co-founder Jan Čapek (@janbraiins), who has been leading the initiative to upgrade pooled mining to the Stratum V2 protocol. Aaron, Sjors and Jan discuss what pooled mining is, how the Stratum protocol helps with that, and in what ways Stratum V2 is an improvement over Stratum V1.
Episode Sponsor
Episode 79: The Witness Discount
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) explain why the witness discount was included in the Segregated Witness protocol upgrade from 2017, why this discount is 75%, and why this discount still makes sense in today’s world where Inscriptions benefit from it.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-in
Episode 78: Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs) (And Dutch Auctions)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) explain Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs), discussing what problems they solve, how they work, and some of the ways they are used. In the last part of the episode, the hosts zoom in on one particular PSBT use case called Dutch Auctions, which Bitcoin Magazine recently used to sell ordinals.
Episode Sponsor
Episode 77: Peer-to-peer Encryption
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss BIP 324, the proposal by Dhruv, Pieter Wuille and Tim Ruffing to add peer-to-peer (P2P) encryption to the Bitcoin protocol. They explain why this is needed, how it would work, and which problems it would, and wouldn’t solve.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-S
Episode 76: Stamps (And the Invalid Block Caused by It)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain Stamps, a new(?) protocol to upload images onto the Bitcoin blockchain, which end up in the UTXO set.
To learn more about some of the concepts mentioned in this episode, also check out episode 15 (Utreexo), episode 61 (OP_RETURN), episode 72 (Inscriptions) and episode 75 (Multisig).
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New
Episode 75: Multisig (And Musig)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss multi-signature (multisig), and the various ways that Bitcoin enables multisig; from bare multisig, to P2SH, SegWit, Taproot, and finally Musig, as well as some potential future solutions.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don&
Episode 74: Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain pay-to-script-hash (P2SH), which allows bitcoin to be sent to and from the hash of a script. Besides (the current implementation of) P2SH itself, Aaron and Sjors also discuss some alternatives that were proposed around the time that P2SH was adopted in 2012.
For further reading on the history of P2SH, also see "The Battle for P2SH: The
Episode 73: OP_VAULT
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain OP_VAULT, a proposed op code that would enable an elegant type of vaults through Bitcoin’s scripting language.
For more information, also see:
https://jameso.be/vaults.pdf
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/c589490f98ba1b0c606d0e2030463f1fde54b786/bip-vaults.mediawiki
===
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https:
Episode 72: Inscriptions
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain Inscriptions, a new method to upload arbitrary data onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
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Episode 71: Timelocks
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss the different types of timelocks available on Bitcoin (and what can go wrong when used incorrectly).
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
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Episode 70: The Bitcoin Core 24.0 Bug (Or Why There Is a Bitcoin Core 24.0.1 Release)
Aaron and Sjors explain how a wallet bug crept into the Bitcoin Core 24.0 release, and why there is now a Bitcoin Core version 24.0.1 available.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Lower your time preference and lock-in your Bitcoin 2023 conference tickets today!!!
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Episode 69: The Tornado Cash Trial
Aaron and Sjors explain what happened in the pro forma hearing concerning the trial against Alexy Pertsev, one of the developers behind the Ethereum-based Tornado Cash mixer. While this means that this episode dives more into the domain of Ethereum smart contracts and Dutch law, Aaron and Sjors do discuss the ongoing case from a Bitcoin perspective.
THIS EPISODE’S SPONSORS:
Voltage - https://volt
Episode 68: Full Replace-By-Fee (RBF) in Bitcoin Core 24.0
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost revisit replace-by-fee (RBF). As they mentioned in Bitcoin, Explained episode 65, the upcoming Bitcoin Core release — Bitcoin Core 24.0 — includes the option to switch on “full RBF”, but this has caused some commotion in the Bitcoin community since the recording of that episode. Aaron and Sjors explain what this commo
Episode 67: Insights From the Fourth Largest Lightning Network Node
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost speak with Sam Wouters, a research analyst at River Financial. River operates the fourth largest node on the Lightning network, and Sam recently published a report detailing unique insights from this Lightning node. At the start of the episode, Sjors first gives a brief update on the bug that brought down LND nodes,
Episode 66: The BTCD Bug That Brought Down LND Nodes
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss a recent bug in the btcd Bitcoin implementation that affected a large part of the Lightning network, as it disconnected lnd Lightning nodes from the Bitcoin blockchain. In the episode, Aaron and Sjors explain that a developer going by the name Burak on Twitter created a 998-of-999 multisig transaction by lev
Episode 65: Bitcoin Core 24.0
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the upcoming Bitcoin Core major release, Bitcoin Core 24.0. The Bitcoin Core project produces a new major release of its software roughly every six months. The 24th major release is currently in its release candidate phase, which means that it is being tested and could technically be released any day now (tho
Episode 64: HD Wallets, Mnemonic Codes and SeedQR
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) Wallets, mnemonic codes, and — especially — the new SeedQR format which allows users to store their mnemonic codes as QR codes. Aaron and Sjors start the episode by recapping what HD Wallets (also known as private key seeds) are, and why they are preferred over regular private k
Episode 63: The Bitcoin Core Development Process
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the Bitcoin Core development process, and more specifically, the different roles that are involved in this process. At the start of the episode, Aaron and Sjors explain what Bitcoin Core is, both in a practical sense as well as in a more definitional sense, and they touch on some slightly different ideas about
Episode 62: Hash Functions
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost go back to basics. They explain one of the most fundamental building blocks in all of Bitcoin: hash functions. To start the episode off, Aaron and Sjors explain that hash functions are a type of mathematical one-way functions. That means that they can easily convert one piece of data into another piece of data, a hash
Episode 61: OP_RETURN (And the ‘OP_RETURN Wars’)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss OP_RETURN and what some have called the “OP_RETURN wars”. More specifically, they discuss a blog post by BitMEX research titled: “The OP_Return Wars of 2014 – Dapps Vs Bitcoin Transactions”. Aaron and Sjors start off by explaining that OP_RETURN is an op code (a piece of code for Bitcoin transactions) that wil
Episode 60: Reusing Addresses (and the Hertzbleed Attack)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss reusing Bitcoin addresses. More specifically, they explain why reusing Bitcoin addresses is a bad idea. Reusing Bitcoin addresses is a bad idea for roughly three reasons. The first two of these are that it harms privacy and impedes on the censorship resistance of Bitcoin. In the episode, Aaron and Sjors go ov
Episode 59: Hard Forks (And Whether Bitcoin Has Ever Hard Forked)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss a recent blog post by James Lopp titled, “Has Bitcoin Ever Hard Forked”? Hard forks are generally defined as Bitcoin protocol upgrades that remove or loosen rules, making these types of upgrades backwards-incompatible. Aaron and Sjors explain, however, that Lopp in his blog post argues that this definition i
Episode 58: Silent Payments
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost welcome Ruben Somsen back on the show to talk about a recent proposal of his called “Silent Payments”. Silent Payments resemble earlier ideas like Stealth Addresses and Reusable Payment Codes, in that they allow users to publish a static “address”, while this is not the actual Bitcoin address they will be paid on. I
Episode 57: User Rejected Soft Forks (URSFs)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss URSFs, which stands for either User Rejected Soft Forks or User Resisted Soft Forks, depending on who you ask. URSFs are a recently introduced tool in Bitcoin’s upgrade mechanism toolkit. In the first part of the episode, Aaron and Sjors explain that URSFs are best considered the mirror equivalent of UASFs
Episode 56: Bitcoin Core 23.0
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Bitcoin Core 23.0, the upcoming major release of Bitcoin's de facto reference implementation. The duo highlights some of the most notable changes in this new software client, and they offer a bit of extra context about the release as well. At the time of recording this episode, Bitcoin Core 23.0 was still goi
Episode 55: Syncing Old Nodes
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss research done by CasaHODL co-founder and CTO Jameson Lopp as well as Sjors himself on syncing old Bitcoin nodes. Whenever a new Bitcoin node comes online, it must first sync with the rest of the Bitcoin network: it needs to download and verify the entire blockchain up until the most recent block in order to
Episode 54: Burying Soft Forks
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost revisit the Taproot activation saga, this time to discuss burying of soft forks. Taproot, the last soft fork to have been deployed on the Bitcoin network, activated in late 2021. Now, Bitcoin Core developers are considering to “bury” the soft fork, which means that future Bitcoin Core releases will treat Taproot as
Episode 53: Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are joined by resident sidechain and Layer Two expert Ruben Somsen again, this time to discuss Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs). Discreet Log Contracts are a type of smart contracts for Bitcoin, first proposed by Lightning Network white paper coauthor Tadge Dryja. In essence, DLCs are a way to perform bets— but this mea
Episode 52: Federated eCash
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are once again joined by resident sidechain and Layer Two expert Ruben Somsen, this time to discuss Federated Ecash, a project that has since October 2021 been sponsored by Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream. In the episode, Aaron, Sjors and Ruben discuss the history and design of Ecash, a pioneering digital c
Episode 51: Compact Blocks
Hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are back from their travel break for a brand new episode of Bitcoin, Explained! In this episode, they explain how Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network is made more efficient and fast with Compact Blocks. Compact blocks are — as the name suggests — compact versions of Bitcoin blocks, that have been used by Bitcoin Core nodes since version 0.13. Compact Blocks co
Episode 50: The Mempool (And Why We Need It)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss a recent thread on the Bitcoin development mailing list, titled “Death to the Mempool, Long Live the Mempool”. In the thread, Blockstream engineer Lisa “niftynei” Neigut proposes to get rid of the memory pool (mempool): the collection of unconfirmed transactions that Bitcoin nodes use to share transactions o
Episode 49: The Attack of the Fake Peers!
Bitcoin was under attack! It’s the story the mainstream media won’t tell you! Hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost finally met in Utrecht again to record Bitcoin, Explained. In this episode, they discuss a recent attack on the Bitcoin network, where some nodes were flooding peers with fake IP-addresses. As previously discussed in episode 13, Bitcoin nodes connect to peers on the network t
Episode 48: SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT and Eltoo part 2
In this episode of “Bitcoin Explained,” host Sjors Provoost and guest Christian Decker discussed SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT, a proposed new sighash flag that would enable a cleaner version of the Lightning Network and other Layer 2 protocols. Sighash flags are included in Bitcoin transactions to indicate which part of the transaction is signed by the required private keys, exactly. This can be (almost) th
Episode 47: Lightning Network Payment Flows
In this episode of Bitcoin Explained, (formerly known as The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado) host Sjors Provoost is joined by Rene Pickhardt to discuss Rene’s paper “Optimally Reliable & Cheap Payment Flows on the Lightning Network”. Rene has spent the last two years researching the reliability of the lightning network, and the reliability of the payment process. They discuss the design principles of the li
Episode 46: The Chivo App (First Look)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained (formerly known as The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado) hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the Chivo application, the Bitcoin wallet, and payment terminal provided by the government of El Salvador. This episode is a little bit different from other episodes of Bitcoin, Explained, because the Chivo app is closed source software. Instead of analyzing the sour
Episode 45: Bitcoin Core 22.0
The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado has rebranded, and is now called Bitcoin, Explained! In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Bitcoin Core 22.0, the latest major release of the Bitcoin Core software client, currently the de facto reference implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. Aaron and Sjors highlight several improvements to the Bitcoin Core software. Th
Episode 44: BOLT 12
Sjors is back! In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss BOLT 12 (Basis of Lightning Technology 12), a newly proposed Lightning Network specification for “offers”, a type of “meta invoices” designed by c-lightning developer Rusty Russell. Where coins on Bitcoin’s base layer are sent to addresses, the Lightning network uses invoices. Invoices com
Episode 43: Hardware Wallets and Blockstream’s Jade Wallet
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron van Wirdum hosts one more interview without his regular cohost Sjors Provoost. Instead, he is joined by Blockstream’s Lawrence Nahum, one of the developers behind the Jade wallet, and Ben Kaufman, one of the developers of the Spectre wallet, which is specifically designed to work with hardware wallets. Aaron, Lawrence and Ben talk about what hardw
Episode 42: The Bitcoin Beach Wallet (Bitcoin Beach Special)
A Bitcoin Beach special! In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado host Aaron van Wirdum speaks with Bitcoin Beach Wallet developer Nicolas Burtey — without cohost Sjors Provoost this time. Aaron and Nicolas met up in El Zonte, El Salvador — which has been dubbed Bitcoin Beach — to discuss the Bitcoin Beach Wallet, a Bitcoin and Lightning wallet specifically designed for use in the small Central
Episode 41: Lightning Network Routing
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are joined by Lightning developer Joost Jager to discuss everything about Lightning Network routing. The Lightning Network — Bitcoin’s Layer Two protocol for fast and cheap payments — consists of a network of payments channels. Each payment channel exists between two Lightning users. But even if two users don’t
Episode 40: Taproot Activation part 5: Lock-in
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the lock-in of the Taproot soft fork upgrade. As discussed in previous episodes, Taproot is a Bitcoin protocol upgrade that will make smart contracts more compact, private and flexible. Aaron and Sjors also discussed the Taproot upgrade process in prior episodes, including the Speedy Trial activation met
Episode 39: The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) Process
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost explain what Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) are, and how the BIP process works. They discuss why the BIP process is a useful, yet non-binding convention within Bitcoin’s technical community. Aaron and Sjors start off by explaining what a BIP is exactly— and what it is not. They also explain that only impro
Episode 38: The Replace-By-Fee Bug Affecting Child Transactions In Bitcoin Core
In this Episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss CVE-2021-31876, a bug in the Bitcoin Core code that affects replace-by-fee (RBF) child transactions. The CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) system offers an overview of publicly known software bugs. A newly discovered bug in the Bitcoin Core code was recently discovered and disclosed by Antoine R
Episode 37: MaraPool and Mining Censorship
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the emergence of Mara Pool, the American Bitcoin mining pool operated by Marathon Digital Holdings, which claims to be fully compliance with US regulations. More generally, Aaron and Sjors discuss the prospects of mining censorship, what that would mean for Bitcoin, and what can be done about it. Mara Po
Episode 36: Taproot Activation part 4: Speedy Trial and the LOT=true Client
The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado 36 — Speedy Trial And The LOT=True Client In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed the final implementation details of Speedy Trial, the Taproot activation mechanism included in Bitcoin Core 0.21.1. Van Wirdum and Provoost also compared Speedy Trial to the alternative BIP 8 LOT=true activation client. After more t
Episode 35: SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT and Eltoo
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT, a proposed new sighash flag that would enable a cleaner version of the Lightning Network and other Layer Two protocols.Sighash flags are included in Bitcoin transactions to indicate which part of the transaction is signed by the required private keys, exactly. This can be (almost) the
Episode 34: Erlay
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the Erlay protocol. Erlay is a proposal to reduce the bandwidth required to run a Bitcoin node, which has been proposed and developed by University of British Columbia researchers Gleb Naumenko, Alexandra Fedorova and Ivan Beschastnikh; Blockstream engineer Pieter Wuille; and independent Bitcoin Core con
Episode 33: RGB
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are once again joined by Ruben Somsen. The trio discusses RGB tokens, a Layer Two protocol for Bitcoin to support alternative currency and token schemes (like the currently popular non-fungible tokens, or NFTs). Aaron, Sjors and Ruben explain that the Bitcoin blockchain has been (ab)used by users to host data si
Episode 32: Segregated Witness (SegWit)
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Segregated Witness, also known as SegWit. SegWit was the last soft fork to have been activated on the Bitcoin network in the summer of 2017, and the biggest Bitcoin protocol upgrade to date. In short, SegWit allowed transaction data and signature data to be separated in Bitcoin blocks. In this episode, A
Episode 31: Taproot Activation part 3: Speedy Trial
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Speedy Trial, the proposed Taproot activation mechanism that has been gaining traction in recent weeks. Aaron and Sjors explain that Speedy Trial would give miners three months to signal support for the Taproot upgrade with their hash power. If a supermajority of miners signal support for the upgrade wit
Episode 30: Hardware Wallet Integration in Bitcoin Core and the Hardware Wallet Interface (HWI)
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss hardware wallet integration into Bitcoin Core, one of the ongoing projects that Sjors regularly contributes to himself. Hardware wallets are a popular solution for storing private keys offline, to minimize the risk that hackers gain access to the corresponding coins. They are used in combination with reg
Episode 29: Taproot Activation part 2: LOT=true Versus LOT=false
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss activation of the Taproot soft fork upgrade, and more specifically, the lock-in on timeout (LOT) parameter. The LOT parameter can be set to either “true” (LOT=true) or “false” (LOT=false). LOT=false resembles how several previous soft forks were activated. Miners would have one year to coordinate Taproot
Episode 28: Bitcoin Addresses
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Bitcoin addresses. Every Bitcoin user has probably at one point used Bitcoin addresses, but what are they, exactly? Aaron and Sjors explain that Bitcoin addresses are not part of the Bitcoin protocol. Instead, they are conventions used by Bitcoin (wallet) software to communicate where coins must be spent
Episode 27: Softchains
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are once again joined by Ruben Somsen. This time, they discuss one of Ruben’s own proposals, called Softchains. Softchains are a type of two-way peg sidechains that utilize a new type of consensus mechanism: proof-of-work fraud proofs (or as Sjors prefers to call them, proof-of-work fraud indicators). Using this
Episode 26: Replace-By-Fee (RBF)
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Replace By Fee (RBF). RBF is a trick that lets unconfirmed transactions be replaced by conflicting transactions that include a higher fee. With RBF, users can essentially bump a transaction fee to incentivize miners to include the transaction in a block. Aaron and Sjors explain three advantages of RBF: t
Episode 25: Compact Client-Side Block Filters (Neutrino)
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Compact Client Side Filtering, also known as Neutrino. Compact Client Side Filtering is a solution to use Bitcoin without needing to download and validate the entire blockchain, and without sacrificing your privacy to someone who operates a full node (and therefore did download and validate the entire bl
Episode 24: Bitcoin Core 0.21.0
In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the newly released Bitcoin Core 0.21.0. Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 is the 21st and latest major release of the Bitcoin Core software, the oldest and most important Bitcoin node implementation, which is often also regarded as the reference implementation for the Bitcoin protocol. Follow Aaron van Wirdum @Aaron
Episode 23: Drivechain
In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are once again joined by Ruben Somsen. The trio discusses Drivechain, a sidechain project spearheaded by Paul Sztorc.Sidechains are alternative blockchains, where coins are pegged to bitcoin. This should make the sidechain coins interchangeable with bitcoin and therefore carry an equal value. In a way, sidecha
Episode 22: The Lightning Network
In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the basics of the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s Layer 2 protocol for cheaper, faster and potentially more private transactions.
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