Shows
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 80: Stratum V2In 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: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
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2023-06-1350 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 79: The Witness DiscountIn 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-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2024 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! - https://b.tc/conference/2024
2023-05-2349 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of...
2023-05-0932 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 77: Peer-to-peer EncryptionIn 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-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets no...
2023-04-2436 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
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2023-04-1550 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10...
2023-03-3152 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 Untold History of Bitcoin’s First War"
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
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2023-03-1743 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 73: OP_VAULTIn 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://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is...
2023-02-2440 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 72: InscriptionsIn 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
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! https://b.tc/conference/2023
2023-02-0940 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 71: TimelocksIn 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
Lower your time preference and lock-in your Bitcoin 2023 conference tickets today!!! Use promo code BMLIVE to save 10% off your conference tickets today!!!
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2023-01-2032 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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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2022-12-3023 minBitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 69: The Tornado Cash TrialAaron 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://voltage.cloud/
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2022-12-0239 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 68: Full Replace-By-Fee (RBF) in Bitcoin Core 24.0In 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 commotion has been about, and they highlight some of the new arguments for and against (full) RBF. RBF has been the topic of a previous Bitcoin, Explained episode: episode 26. In this new episode, therefore, Aaron and Sjors don’t explain in-de...
2022-11-1842 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 67: Insights From the Fourth Largest Lightning Network NodeIn 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, discussed in episode 66. He confirms that his assessment of the cause was correct, and explains that a very similar bug has brought down LND once more since recording of the last episode.
2022-11-0750 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 66: The BTCD Bug That Brought Down LND NodesIn 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 leveraging Taproot. Although this was a valid transaction, btcd and lnd nodes rejected it, and therefore rejected the block that included the transaction and all blocks that came after it.
2022-10-2133 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 65: Bitcoin Core 24.0In 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 (though this phase will probably last a few more weeks). In the episode, Aaron and Sjors discuss seven of the most notable changes included in Bitcoin Core 24.0. This includes a change to how nodes do...
2022-10-0741 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 64: HD Wallets, Mnemonic Codes and SeedQRIn 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 key backups. Next, they briefly explain why mnemonic codes (also known as seed phrases) are a popular solution for encoding and storing private key seeds. The Bitcoin, Explained hosts then go on to d...
2022-09-1929 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 63: The Bitcoin Core Development ProcessIn 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 this as well. Aaron and Sjors then go on to explain the roles of three distinct types of Bitcoin Core contributors: “regular” Bitcoin Core contributors, Bitcoin Core maintainers, and...
2022-09-0239 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 62: Hash FunctionsIn 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, but anyone who knows only this hash can not convert it back to the original data. Additionally, a hash is supposed to be unique: no two (different) pieces...
2022-08-1235 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 will render invalid any transaction that includes it in an input. This means that outputs that include OP_RETURN are unspendeable, which in turn means that Bitcoin nodes can safely remove suc...
2022-07-1526 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 over a couple examples of how such a loss of privacy and censorship resistance can negatively affect Bitcoin users. The third reason that reusing Bitcoin addresses is a bad idea...
2022-07-0133 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 isn’t very precise and suggests the term should only apply if the rule change was actually utilized. In addition, hard forks can be categorized into explicit hard forks, where the rule change was an intentional hard fork, and imp...
2022-06-2040 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 58: Silent PaymentsIn 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. Instead, senders of a transaction can use this static address to generate new Bitcoin addresses for the recipient, for which the recipient — and only the recipient — can in turn generate the corresponding private keys. Like Stealth A...
2022-06-1046 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 (User Activated Soft Forks) with mandated signaling. Where UASFs will towards the end of a soft fork activation window reject blocks that don’t signal readiness for a soft fork, URSFs will rejec...
2022-05-0643 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 56: Bitcoin Core 23.0In 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 going through the release candidate phase, where the software is tested for bugs; Aaron and Sjors start by explaining how this process works, exactly. Then, throughout the episode, Aaron and Sjors highlight...
2022-04-2534 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 be up to date on the state of bitcoin ownership. This can take quite a while, however, and should take longer over time as the blockchain keeps growing. To offset this, a...
2022-03-2537 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 54: Burying Soft ForksIn 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 if the rule change has been active since Bitcoin’s very beginning. (With the exception of one block mined in 2021 that breached the Taproot rules which have since been added to the protocol.) In the episode, Sjors ex...
2022-02-2537 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 means that they can ultimately be leveraged for all sorts of financial instruments, including futures markets, insurances and stablecoins. At the start of the episode, Aaron, Sjors and Ruben discuss what ca...
2022-02-1152 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 52: Federated eCashIn 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 cash project developed by cryptographer David Chaum and his startup Digicash in the early 1990s. The trio explains how the Ecash system allowed customers of regular banks to make private transactions over the internet.
2022-01-1444 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 51: Compact BlocksHosts 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 contain the minimal amount of data required for Bitcoin nodes to reconstruct entire blocks. Most notably, Compact Blocks exclude most transaction data, to instead include short transaction identifiers. Bitcoin nodes can use these short identi...
2021-12-3118 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 over the network, and that Bitcoin miners use to create new blocks from. She argues that the Bitcoin system could be drastically simplified if users instead just send their transactions directly to miners (or mining pools). In the episode...
2021-11-2739 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 through IP-addresses, which they learn from their existing peers. Nodes on the network essentially share the IP-addresses of other nodes. Recently, however, some Bi...
2021-11-1220 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 48: SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT and Eltoo part 2In 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) the entire transaction, or specific parts of it. Signing only specific parts allows for some flexibility to adjust the transaction even after it is signed, which can sometimes be useful. --------------------------------------------- Bitcoin Maga...
2021-10-2932 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 47: Lightning Network Payment FlowsIn 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 lightning network, the difficulties with routing payments on lightning, probing channel balances, and much more. Rene's Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.05322 --------------------------------------------- Bitcoin Magazine is back in print! Get Bitcoin Magazine shipped directly...
2021-10-1527 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 source code and design of the application, Aaron and Sjors have to rely on Aaron’s personal experience with the wallet and payment terminal or what he remembers of that personal experience. The episode opens with some ge...
2021-10-1153 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 45: Bitcoin Core 22.0The 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. The first of these is hardware wallet support in the graphical user interface (GUI). While hardware wallet support has been rolling out across several previous Bitcoin Core releases, it is now fully available in the GUI...
2021-09-1332 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 44: BOLT 12Sjors 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 communicate the requested amount, node destination, and the hash of a secret which is used for payment routing. This works, but has a number of limitations, Sjors explains, notably that the amount must be bitcoin-denominated (as opposed...
2021-08-1330 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 43: Hardware Wallets and Blockstream’s Jade WalletIn 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 hardware wallets are, and discuss the design tradeoffs that different hardware wallets have taken by focussing on the Trezor, Ledger and ColdCard specifically. In this light, Lawrence and Ben explain what secure el...
2021-07-3052 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 American coastal town frequented by surfers and, now, bitcoiners. Aaron and Nicolas discuss the pros and cons of custodial and non-custodial Lightning wallets, and Nicolas explains why he opted to make the Bitcoi...
2021-07-1658 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 41: Lightning Network RoutingIn 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 have a payment channel between themselves directly, they can pay each other though one or several other Lightning users, who in that case forward the payment from the payer to the payee. The ch...
2021-07-0240 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 40: Taproot Activation part 5: Lock-inIn 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 method adopted by Bitcoin Core. About a week ago, the Speedy Trial signaling threshold was reached, which means Taproot is locked in and will activate later this year. Aaron and Sjors go into...
2021-06-1830 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 39: The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) ProcessIn 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 improvements to Bitcoin software that affects other projects require a BIP. The two go on to dive into the history of the BIP process a little bit, noting that the form...
2021-06-1120 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 38: The Replace-By-Fee Bug Affecting Child Transactions In Bitcoin CoreIn 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 Riard, and added to the CVE overview. Aaron and Sjors explain that the bug affects how RBF logic is handled by the Bitcoin Core software. When one unconfirmed transaction includes an RBF flag...
2021-05-2120 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 37: MaraPool and Mining CensorshipIn 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 Pool claims to be fully compliant with US regulations, which means it applies anti-money laundering (AML) checks and ad hers to the sanction list of the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC...
2021-05-0731 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 36: Taproot Activation part 4: Speedy Trial and the LOT=true ClientThe 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 than a year of deliberation, the Bitcoin Core project has merged Speedy Trial as the (first) activation mechanism for the Taproot protocol upgrade. Although van Wirdum and Provoost had already covered Taproot, the differe...
2021-04-2351 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 35: SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT and EltooIn 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 entire transaction, or specific parts of it. Signing only specific parts allows for some flexibility to adjust the transaction even after it is signed, which can sometimes be useful.Aaron and Sjors...
2021-04-1634 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 34: ErlayIn 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 contributor Gregory Maxwell. Bitcoin nodes use bandwidth to receive and transmit both block data as well as transaction data. Reducing the amount of bandwidth a node requires to do this, would make it cheaper to run a...
2021-04-0924 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 33: RGBIn 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 since the project’s early days. This was initially done through otherwise-useless transaction outputs, which meant that all Bitcoin users had to store this data locally. A feature called OP_RETURN la...
2021-03-2645 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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, Aaron and Sjors explain how this works, and that this offered four main benefits: First, SegWit solved the transaction malleability issue, where transaction IDs could be altered without invalidating...
2021-03-1928 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 31: Taproot Activation part 3: Speedy TrialIn 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 within these thee months, Taproot will activate a couple of months later: six months since the release of the software client that includes the activation logic. If miners don’t signal support within th...
2021-03-1235 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 regular software wallets to sign transactions in such a way that the private keys never leave the device.
2021-03-0526 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastExplaining Taproot Activation and LOT=True VS LOT=False - The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado 29For more technical content like this Subscribe to The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado in your primary podcast app! http://nadobtc.btc.libsynpro.com/website 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 activation through hash power; if and when...
2021-02-2640 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 29: Taproot Activation part 2: LOT=true Versus LOT=falseIn 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 activation through hash power; if and when a supermajority (probably 90 percent) of miners signal readiness for the upgrade, the soft fork will activate. But if this doesn’t happen within (probably) a year, the...
2021-02-2640 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 28: Bitcoin AddressesIn 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 to: either a public key (P2PK), a public key hash (P2PKH), a script hash (P2SH), a witness public key hash (P2WPKH), or a witness script hash (P2WSH). Addresses...
2021-02-1932 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 27: SoftchainsIn 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 consensus mechanism, users don’t validate the content of each block, but instead only check the proof of work header, like Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) clients do. But using proof-of-work fraud proofs, user...
2021-02-1250 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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: the option the “speed up” a transaction (1), which can in turn result in a more effective fee market for block space (2), as well as the potential to make more efficient use of bloc...
2021-02-0532 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 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 blockchain). Downloading and validating the entire Bitcoin blockchain can take a couple of days even on a standard laptop, and much longer on smart phones or other limited-performance computers. This is why many people...
2021-01-2926 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 24: Bitcoin Core 0.21.0In 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 @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Follow Bitcoin Magazine @BitcoinMagazine
2021-01-2232 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 23: DrivechainIn 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, sidechains let users “move” bitcoin across blockchains, where they are subject to different protocol rules, allowing for greater transaction capacity, more privacy, and other benefits.Aaron, Sjors and Ruben explain that Drivechain consists of two main innovati...
2021-01-1545 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - The Lightning Network Basics - NADO 22In 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.
2021-01-0824 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 22: The Lightning NetworkIn 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.
2021-01-0824 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Why Open Source Matters for Bitcoin - NADO 21In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss why it matters that Bitcoin software is open source… and why even open source software doesn't necessarily solve all software-specific trust issues. In theory, the fact that most Bitcoin nodes, wallets and applications are open source should ensure that developers can’t include malicious code in the programs: anyone can inspect the source code for malware. In practice, however, the number of people with enough expertise to do this is limited, while the reliance of some Bitcoin projects on external code libraries (“dependencies”) makes it even har...
2020-12-1835 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 21: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) In Bitcoin (And Why It Matters)In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss why it matters that Bitcoin software is open source… and why even open source software doesn't necessarily solve all software-specific trust issues. In theory, the fact that most Bitcoin nodes, wallets and applications are open source should ensure that developers can’t include malicious code in the programs: anyone can inspect the source code for malware. In practice, however, the number of people with enough expertise to do this is limited, while the reliance of some Bitcoin projects on external code libraries (“dependencies”) makes it even har...
2020-12-1835 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 20: RSK, Federated Sidechains and PowpegIn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss RSK’s shift from a federated sidechain model to the project’s new Powpeg solution. RSK is a merge mined Ethereum-like Bitcoin sidechain developed by IOVlabs. Bitcoin users can effectively move their coins to this blockchain that operates more like Ethereum, and move the coins back to the Bitcoin blockchain when they so choose. Some Bitcoin miners utilize their hashpower to mine bocks on the sidechain, and earn some extra transaction fees by doing so.The tricky part of any sidechain is allowing user...
2020-12-1123 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - RSK, federated sidechains and Powpeg - NADO 20In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss RSK’s shift from a federated sidechain model to the project’s new Powpeg solution. RSK is a merge mined Ethereum-like Bitcoin sidechain developed by IOVlabs. Bitcoin users can effectively move their coins to this blockchain that operates more like Ethereum, and move the coins back to the Bitcoin blockchain when they so choose. Some Bitcoin miners utilize their hashpower to mine bocks on the sidechain, and earn some extra transaction fees by doing so.The tricky part of any sidechain is allowing user...
2020-12-1123 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Mempools, Child Pays for Parent, and Package Relay - NADO 19In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed Bitcoin mempools, Child Pays For Parent (CPFP) and package relay. Package relay is the project that Gloria Zhao will work on as part of her Brink fellowship, which was announced earlier this week, and would make the Lightning Network more robust (among other benefits). Mempools are the collections of unconfirmed transactions stored by nodes, from which they forward transactions to peers. Miners usually select the transactions from their mempools that include the highest fees, to include these in the blocks they mine. Mempools...
2020-12-0420 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 19: Child Pays for Parent (CPFP) and Package RelayIn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed Bitcoin mempools, Child Pays For Parent (CPFP) and package relay. Package relay is the project that Gloria Zhao will work on as part of her Brink fellowship, which was announced earlier this week, and would make the Lightning Network more robust (among other benefits). Mempools are the collections of unconfirmed transactions stored by nodes, from which they forward transactions to peers. Miners usually select the transactions from their mempools that include the highest fees, to include these in the blocks they mi...
2020-12-0420 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Erebus Attacks and how to stop them with ASMAP - NADO 18In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss the Erebus Attack. The episode is a follow-up from last week’s episode on Eclipse Attacks, a type of attack that isolates a Bitcoin node by occupying all of its connection slots to block the node from receiving any transactions. Erebus Attacks are Eclipse Attacks where an attacker essentially spoofs a whole part of the internet. Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds
2020-11-2016 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 18: Erebus AttacksIn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss the Erebus Attack. The episode is a follow-up from last week’s episode on Eclipse Attacks, a type of attack that isolates a Bitcoin node by occupying all of its connection slots to block the node from receiving any transactions. Erebus Attacks are Eclipse Attacks where an attacker essentially spoofs a whole part of the internet. Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds
2020-11-2016 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Bitcoin Eclipse Attacks And How To Stop Them - NADO 17In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss Eclipse attacks. More specifically, they discuss the 2015 paper “Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoin’s Peer-to-Peer Network,” written by Ethan Heilman, Alison Kendler, Aviv Zohar and Sharon Goldberg, from Boston University and Hebrew University/MSR Israel. Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-11-1320 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 17: Eclipse AttacksIn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss Eclipse attacks. More specifically, they discuss the 2015 paper “Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoin’s Peer-to-Peer Network,” written by Ethan Heilman, Alison Kendler, Aviv Zohar and Sharon Goldberg, from Boston University and Hebrew University/MSR Israel. Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-11-1320 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 16: Open TimestampsIn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss Open Timestamps, a Bitcoin-based time stamping project by applied cryptography consultant and former Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd. Open Timestamps leverages the security of the Bitcoin blockchain to timestamp any type of data, allowing for irrefutable proof that that data existed at a particular point in time. Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music...
2020-11-0631 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Open Timestamps - NADO 16In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss Open Timestamps, a Bitcoin-based time stamping project by applied cryptography consultant and former Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd. Open Timestamps leverages the security of the Bitcoin blockchain to timestamp any type of data, allowing for irrefutable proof that that data existed at a particular point in time. Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music...
2020-11-0631 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 15: UtreexoOn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors are once again joined by Ruben Somsen. This time, the trio doesn’t discuss one of Somsen’s own proposals, but they dive into a concept by Tadge Dryja called Utreexo. Helpful links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y6n88DmkjU https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoins-growing-utxo-problem-and-how-utreexo-can-help-solve-it Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Follow Ruben Somsen @SomsenRuben Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-10-3031 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Utreexo w/ Ruben Somsen - NADO 15On this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors are once again joined by Ruben Somsen. This time, the trio doesn’t discuss one of Somsen’s own proposals, but they dive into a concept by Tadge Dryja called Utreexo. Helpful links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y6n88DmkjU https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoins-growing-utxo-problem-and-how-utreexo-can-help-solve-it Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Follow Ruben Somsen @SomsenRuben Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The Nakam...
2020-10-3031 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Headers First, Assume Valid and Assume UTXO - NADO 14On this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss “Assume UTXO”, a proposal and project by Chaincode Labs alumni James O’Beirne. One of the biggest bottlenecks for scaling Bitcoin — if not the biggest one — is initial block download: the time it takes for a Bitcoin node to synchronize with the Bitcoin network, as it needs to process all historic transactions and blocks in order to construct the latest UTXO-set: the current state of bitcoin-ownership. Aaron and Sjors explain some of the ways sync-time has been sped up over time. First, sync-time was improved through “Headers First” synchronization...
2020-10-2323 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 14: Headers First, Assume Valid and Assume UTXOOn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss “Assume UTXO”, a proposal and project by Chaincode Labs alumni James O’Beirne. One of the biggest bottlenecks for scaling Bitcoin — if not the biggest one — is initial block download: the time it takes for a Bitcoin node to synchronize with the Bitcoin network, as it needs to process all historic transactions and blocks in order to construct the latest UTXO-set: the current state of bitcoin-ownership. Aaron and Sjors explain some of the ways sync-time has been sped up over time. First, sync-time was improved through “Headers First” synchronization...
2020-10-2323 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 13: Tor v3 Support in Bitcoin Core 0.21Bitcoin Core 0.21 will support Tor v3 addresses. Aaron and Sjors explain what this means and why it matters, and also discuss how new Bitcoin nodes find existing Bitcoin nodes when they bootstrap to the network. Helpful Links: * Tor V3 (onion) address support in Bitcoin Core: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/19954 * the ADDRv2 message added in BIP155 that allows nodes to gossip those new Tor addresses: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0155.mediawiki#Specification * DNS seeds and the bootstrap problem: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41673073/how-does-the-bitcoin-client-determine-the-first-ip-address-to-connect Timestamps:
2020-10-1618 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 12: Blind Merged Mining and the Perpetual One-Way PegIn this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Ruben Somsen returns to explain his proposal to combine blind merged mining and perpetual one-way pegs in order to create a new type of sidechain. The bad news: it won't make you rich but it could help scale Bitcoin! Helpful Links: https://medium.com/@RubenSomsen/21-million-bitcoins-to-rule-all-sidechains-the-perpetual-one-way-peg-96cb2f8ac302 Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Follow Ruben Somsen @SomsenRuben Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By...
2020-10-0940 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - The Perpetual One-Way Peg - NADO 12In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Ruben Somsen returns to explain his proposal to combine blind merged mining and perpetual one-way pegs in order to create a new type of sidechain. The bad news: it won't make you rich but it could help scale Bitcoin! Helpful Links: https://medium.com/@RubenSomsen/21-million-bitcoins-to-rule-all-sidechains-the-perpetual-one-way-peg-96cb2f8ac302 Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Follow Ruben Somsen @SomsenRuben Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: T...
2020-10-0940 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Accounts for Bitcoin, Easypaysy! - NADO 11In this episode Sjors and Aaron discuss Jose Femenias' Easypaysy proposal, an account system for Bitcoin, on Bitcoin. They also announce groundbreaking news: The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado now has its own RSS-feed! Aaron's article covering Easypaysy on Bitcoin Magazine https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-need-accounts-one-developer-thinks-figured The BIP in Github https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0047.mediawiki Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music! Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-10-0232 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 11: EasypaysyIn this episode Sjors and Aaron discuss Jose Femenias' Easypaysy proposal, an account system for Bitcoin, on Bitcoin. They also announce groundbreaking news: The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado now has its own RSS-feed! Aaron's article covering Easypaysy on Bitcoin Magazine https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-need-accounts-one-developer-thinks-figured The BIP in Github https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0047.mediawiki Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music! Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-10-0232 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 10: SignetSjors and Aaron discuss Signet, a new type of testnet for Bitcoin that was merged into Bitcoin Core last week. They also discuss the original version of testnet and its problems, as well as alternative testing environment regtest. Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-09-2515 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 9: The Libsecp256k1 LibrarySchnorr signature support was merged into the libsec256k1 library last week. In the episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss what the libsecp256k1 library is, why it matters for Bitcoin, and what it means that Schnorr signature support was merged. Sjors also briefly explains what he ultimate send RPC is, his own pull request that was recently merged into Bitcoin Core as well. Helpful Links: The Power of Schnorr: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/the-power-of-schnorr-the-signature-algorithm-to-increase-bitcoin-s-scale-and-privacy-1460642496 Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine
2020-09-2525 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 8: StatechainsAaron and Sjors welcome their first guest on to the show, Ruben Somsen, to discuss his proposals for Statechains on Bitcoin! Statechains allow you to send keys not UTXO and it offers quite a few scaling and functionality improvements! Helpful Links: Ruben's presentation on Bitcoin Magazine about Statechains: https://youtu.be/CKx6eULIC3A Aaron's Bitcoin Magazine article on Statechains: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/statechains-sending-keys-not-coins-to-scale-bitcoin-off-chain Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost
2020-09-2540 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 7: XPubsIn this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Sjors and Aaron explain what an xpub is and how it is used by Bitcoin wallets. Helpful Links: http://rosenbaum.se/book/grokking-bitcoin-4.html#_hierarchical_deterministic_wallets https://walletsrecovery.org Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-09-2524 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 6: Payment PoolsIn this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Sjors and Aaron discuss the future of Bitcoin Scaling. This podcast is all about Taproot and the cool feature it enables called Payment pools. Topics What are payment pools? Why they need Taproot. The UX of sharing UTXOs How Payment pools work with lightning Helpful Links: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/building-on-taproot-payment-pools-could-be-bitcoins-next-layer-two-protocol Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sound...
2020-09-2535 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 5: Time-Warp Attacks (And Bitcoin Cash’s Difficulty Adjustment Drama)In this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Sjors explains the "time-warp attack" on Bitcon and Aaron explains the unfolding drama with the bcash difficulty adjustment. Helpful Links: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/miners-are-milking-bcashs-difficulty-adjustments-and-why-problem1 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/why-bcash-mining-shouldnt-affect-bitcoin-much-bitcoin-mining-could-ruin-bcash https://read.cash/@jtoomim/dark-secrets-of-the-grasberg-daa-a9239fb6 https://blog.bitcoinabc.org/2020/07/23/announcing-the-grasberg-daa/ https://github.com/TheBlueMatt/bips/blob/cleanup-softfork/bip-XXXX.mediawiki Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music:
2020-09-2554 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 4: MiniscriptIn this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors dive into Miniscript and how it makes using Bitcoin Script much easier. Helpful Links: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/miniscript-how-blockstream-engineers-are-making-bitcoin-programming-easyer Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-09-2529 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 3: Taproot ActivationIn the third episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors break down and explain the different opinions and options available for activating Taproot and potentially future softfork upgrades. Helpful Links: Explainer article by Aaron discussing the different upgrade options: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bip-8-bip-9-or-modern-soft-fork-activation-how-bitcoin-could-upgrade-next Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-09-2544 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 2: TaprootIn the second episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors break down and explain Taproot, the building blocks that make Taproot possible, and what it enables Bitcoin to do. Helpful Links: Taproot Explainer: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/taproot-coming-what-it-and-how-it-will-benefit-bitcoin Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-09-2531 min
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of BitcoinEpisode 1: The Fee Burning Bug and Replace-By-Fee (RBF) Wallet IssuesBitcoin Magazine's Technical editor Aaron van Wirdum teams up with Bitcoin core contributor Sjors Provoost to explain Bitcoin one episode at a time. In the debut episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors break down and explain Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) and Replace By Fee (RBF) and some really tricky attacks that where recently discovered in Bitcoin. Helpful Links: PSBT Attack Vector: https://blog.trezor.io/latest-firmware-updates-correct-possible-segwit-transaction-vulnerability-266df0d2860 RBF Attack Vector: https://zengo.com/bigspender-double-spend-vulnerability-in-bitcoin-wallets/ Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Foll...
2020-09-2235 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Schnorr Signatures and Libsec256k1 - Nado 9Schnorr signature support was merged into the libsec256k1 library last week. In the episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss what the libsecp256k1 library is, why it matters for Bitcoin, and what it means that Schnorr signature support was merged. Sjors also briefly explains what he ultimate send RPC is, his own pull request that was recently merged into Bitcoin Core as well. Helpful Links: The Power of Schnorr: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/the-power-of-schnorr-the-signature-algorithm-to-increase-bitcoin-s-scale-and-privacy-1460642496 Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine
2020-09-1825 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - What is an XPub? - Nado 7In this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Sjors and Aaron explain what an xpub is and how it is used by Bitcoin wallets. Helpful Links: http://rosenbaum.se/book/grokking-bitcoin-4.html#_hierarchical_deterministic_wallets https://walletsrecovery.org Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-09-0424 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Payment Pools and Taproot - NADO 6In this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Sjors and Aaron discuss the future of Bitcoin Scaling. This podcast is all about Taproot and the cool feature it enables called Payment pools. Topics What are payment pools? Why they need Taproot. The UX of sharing UTXOs How Payment pools work with lightning Helpful Links: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/building-on-taproot-payment-pools-could-be-bitcoins-next-layer-two-protocol Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sound...
2020-08-2835 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - The Time-warp Soft Fork & Bitcoin Cash's Difficulty Adjustment Drama - NADO 5In this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Sjors explains the "time-warp attack" on Bitcon and Aaron explains the unfolding drama with the bcash difficulty adjustment. Helpful Links: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/miners-are-milking-bcashs-difficulty-adjustments-and-why-problem1 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/why-bcash-mining-shouldnt-affect-bitcoin-much-bitcoin-mining-could-ruin-bcash https://read.cash/@jtoomim/dark-secrets-of-the-grasberg-daa-a9239fb6 https://blog.bitcoinabc.org/2020/07/23/announcing-the-grasberg-daa/ https://github.com/TheBlueMatt/bips/blob/cleanup-softfork/bip-XXXX.mediawiki Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music:
2020-08-0754 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - What is Miniscript - NADO 4In this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors dive into Miniscript and how it makes using Bitcoin Script much easier. Helpful Links: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/miniscript-how-blockstream-engineers-are-making-bitcoin-programming-easyer Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-07-3129 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Breaking Down Taproot Activation Options - NADO 3Description In the third episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors break down and explain the different opinions and options available for activating Taproot and potentially future softfork upgrades. Helpful Links: Explainer article by Aaron discussing the different upgrade options: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bip-8-bip-9-or-modern-soft-fork-activation-how-bitcoin-could-upgrade-next Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-07-2644 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Explaining Taproot - NADO 2In the second episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors break down and explain Taproot, the building blocks that make Taproot possible, and what it enables Bitcoin to do. Helpful Links: Taproot Explainer: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/taproot-coming-what-it-and-how-it-will-benefit-bitcoin Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit Sounds By: The NakamoTones Album: Citadel Music Produced by: Bitcoin Audio
2020-07-1731 min
Bitcoin Magazine PodcastThe Van Wirdum Sjorsnado - Explaining New PSBT and RBF Attacks - NADO 1Bitcoin Magazine's Technical editor Aaron van Wirdum teams up with Bitcoin core contributor Sjors Provoost to explain Bitcoin one episode at a time. In the debut episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors break down and explain Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) and Replace By Fee (RBF) and some really tricky attacks that where recently discovered in Bitcoin. Helpful Links: PSBT Attack Vector: https://blog.trezor.io/latest-firmware-updates-correct-possible-segwit-transaction-vulnerability-266df0d2860 RBF Attack Vector: https://zengo.com/bigspender-double-spend-vulnerability-in-bitcoin-wallets/ Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Fo...
2020-07-0835 min