Bitcoin, Explained — The Technical Side of Bitcoin
by Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost
Bitcoin journalist Aaron van Wirdum teams up with Bitcoin Core contributor Sjors Provoost to explain Bitcoin one episode at a time.
Episodes
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Episode 101: The COLDCARD Hack
Aaron and Sjors discuss the COLDCARD hack: the bug itself, how it could have happened, and some reflections on having had Coinkite as a sponsor. Note: If you’re using a COLDCARD and still haven’t moved your funds to a secure location, do this as soon as possible. (Also listen to the previous...
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Emergency broadcast: COLDCARD vulnerability
The COLDCARD hardware wallet has a critical vulnerability. If you are using the COLDCARD to store bitcoin, move them to a secure location as soon as you can. More information: https://blog.coinkite.com/coldcard-mk3-seed-generation-warning/ https://blog.coinkite.com/entropy-technical-backgrounder/
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Episode 100: Bitcoin Core 31
Aaron and Sjors discuss what’s new in Bitcoin Core 31. This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the COLDCARD. Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5 Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3
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Episode 99: Bitcoin Core 30
Aaron and Sjors discuss what’s new in Bitcoin Core 30. This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the COLDCARD. Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5 Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3
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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: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5 Sjors’ Nostr:...
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Episode 97: Bitcoin Core 29
Aaron and Sjors discuss what’s new in Bitcoin Core 29. === This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the COLDCARD. Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5 Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3
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Episode 96: Mining Decentralization Update
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…
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Episode 95: Bitcoin Core 28
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...
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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...
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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....
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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 === This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard...
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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…
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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...
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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....
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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…
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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…
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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...
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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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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),...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 74: 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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 Don’t miss out…
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Bitcoin, Explained 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: Bitcoin: A Work In Progress Lower your time preference and lock-in your…
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Bitcoin Explained 70: Bitcoin Core v24 Bug
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…
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Bitcoin, Explained 69: The Tornado Cash Trial
Aaron and Sjors explain what happened in the pro forma hearing concerning the trial against Alexy P., 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 68: RBF In Bitcoin Core 24.0
Aaron and Sjors revisit replace-by-fee (RBF). As they mentioned in 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 67: Insights From the 4th 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.…
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Bitcoin, Explained 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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...
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Bitcoin, Explained 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…
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Bitcoin, Explained 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...
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OP RETURN Wars - Episode 61
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...
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Reusing addresses and the Hertzbleed attack - Episode 60
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...
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Has Bitcoin Ever Hard Forked? - Episode 59
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...
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Silent Payments - Episode 58
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…
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URSFs (User Rejected Soft Forks) - Episode 57
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...
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Bitcoin Core 23.0 - Episode 56
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...
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Syncing Old Bitcoin nodes - Episode 55
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...
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Burying Soft Forks - Episode 54
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...
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Discreet Log Contracts - Episode 53
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...
About this show
Bitcoin journalist Aaron van Wirdum teams up with Bitcoin Core contributor Sjors Provoost to explain Bitcoin one episode at a time.
Hosted by
Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost
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