Bitcoin, Explained — The Technical Side of Bitcoin

By Sjors ProvoostTechnology

Bitcoin, Explained — The Technical Side of Bitcoin episodes

October 09, 2020 The Perpetual One-Way Peg - NADO 12
In 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
Chapters
00:00:00 Ruben returns and the new podcast feed
00:02:44 Blind merged chains and their use cases
00:06:27 How blind merge mining works
00:08:53 Fee bidding, transaction chains and ANYPREVOUT
00:16:52 Censorship, reorgs and security incentives
00:21:28 Covenants inside the transaction scaffold
00:24:38 Burning bitcoin for a perpetual one-way peg
00:29:27 Token price limits and the burned-house objection
00:31:08 Why block space needs value and fees
00:36:04 Separating blockchain technology from speculation
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
41 min
October 02, 2020 Accounts for Bitcoin, Easypaysy! - NADO 11
In 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
Chapters
00:00:00 The new feed and the problem with address reuse
00:02:40 Creating an Easypaysy account on Bitcoin
00:08:16 Payment types: reused keys and address requests
00:10:32 Stealth-style payments and blockchain scanning
00:13:19 Finding accounts with short identifiers
00:15:26 Privacy pitfalls and the BIP47 comparison
00:19:48 Bootstrapping accounts and recurring payments
00:23:39 Non-repudiation and proof of payment
00:26:19 Protocol simplification and discovery updates
00:28:38 Adoption, Lightning offers and on-chain alternatives
Support the Show!Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazineFollow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanWFollow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music!Title: Segwit SoundsBy: The NakamoTonesAlbum: Citadel MusicProduced by: Bitcoin Audio
33 min
September 25, 2020 Explaining Signet - NADO 10
Sjors 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.
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening and the test-network discussion
00:01:26 Why testnet is useful and unstable
00:05:00 Regtest for local automated testing
00:06:47 A predictable shared testing environment
00:08:04 Signet blocks combine signatures and proof of work
00:09:05 Default signers, custom signets and centralization
00:11:53 Testing and revising soft forks
00:13:29 Custom reorg tests, Lightning and release plans
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
16 min
September 25, 2020 Schnorr Signatures and Libsec256k1 - NADO 9
Schnorr 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
Chapters
00:00:00 The send RPC, PSBTs and hardware-wallet integration
00:03:57 Schnorr support arrives in libsecp256k1
00:04:54 What is a software library?
00:05:50 Bitcoin dependence on OpenSSL
00:08:59 Signature parsing, BIP66 and consensus dependencies
00:12:28 A dedicated Bitcoin signature library
00:15:13 Reviewing cryptographic code and sharing the library
00:17:45 Implementing Schnorr on the same elliptic curve
00:20:07 Merged code, releases and eventual Taproot activation
00:23:01 Why Schnorr signatures are useful
Support the Show!
Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine
Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW
Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost
26 min
September 25, 2020 Statechains w/ Ruben Somsen - NADO 8
Aaron 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:
Aaron’s Bitcoin Magazine article on Statechains: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/statechains-sending-keys-not-coins-to-scale-bitcoin-off-chain
Chapters
00:00:00 Introducing Ruben Somsen and statechains
00:02:55 Off-chain transfers of whole UTXOs
00:06:15 Two keys and unilateral recovery transactions
00:11:15 Overriding old states with eltoo
00:13:01 Trusting the operator and reducing custody risk
00:18:57 Opening Lightning channels on statechains
00:20:49 Implementations before ANYPREVOUT
00:23:33 The state history and public double-spend detection
00:28:06 Scaling layers, adoption and federation tradeoffs
00:31:42 Payment pools, monitoring and nested designs
Support the Show!
Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine
Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW
Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost
41 min
September 25, 2020 What is an XPub? - NADO 7
In 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
Chapters
00:00:00 The xpub controversy
00:03:08 Random wallet keys and the backup problem
00:04:51 BIP32 and deterministic master keys
00:06:52 Child keys, accounts and derivation paths
00:08:58 What an xpub reveals to a wallet server
00:11:10 Gap limits and missing wallet history
00:16:04 The lasting privacy cost of sharing xpubs
00:17:19 Seed words and BIP39 usability
00:20:55 Changing standards while preserving old backups
00:22:12 Wallet recovery needs derivation information too
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
25 min
September 25, 2020 Payment Pools and Taproot - NADO 6
In 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 lightningHelpful Links:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/building-on-taproot-payment-pools-could-be-bitcoins-next-layer-two-protocol
Chapters
00:00:00 Sharing a UTXO: payment pools and multisig
00:05:06 Presigned exits and payment channels
00:07:54 Taproot makes pools private and compact
00:09:15 Private payments, balances and pool membership
00:16:18 Off-chain updates and ANYPREVOUT
00:17:56 Hosting Lightning channels inside a pool
00:20:07 Unilateral exits and the factorial design problem
00:26:00 Splitting the exit tree into groups
00:28:20 Covenants, CTV and safer withdrawals
00:32:30 Implementation complexity and long-term scaling
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
36 min
September 25, 2020 The Time-warp Soft Fork & Bitcoin Cash's Difficulty Adjustment Drama - NADO 5
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
Chapters
00:00:00 Block timestamps and difficulty retargeting
00:07:10 How the time-warp attack lowers difficulty
00:17:51 A proposed time-warp fix and consensus cleanup
00:23:18 Why the expected block interval is slightly off
00:25:23 Bitcoin Cash difficulty disputes: the background
00:29:15 Miner switching and the minority-chain problem
00:33:50 Emergency adjustment and mining the algorithm
00:38:54 Replacing the emergency adjustment
00:42:47 Fast retargeting and isolated-node security
00:44:52 ASERT, Grasberg and correcting historical drift
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
55 min
September 25, 2020 What is Miniscript - NADO 4
In this episode of the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors dive into Miniscript and how it makes using Bitcoin Script much easier.
Helpful Links:
Chapters
00:00:00 Miniscript and Bitcoin spending conditions
00:03:34 A stack-based Script example
00:08:41 Why combining arbitrary scripts is dangerous
00:12:35 Miniscript templates and safe composition
00:14:23 Analyzing complex wallet policies
00:18:09 Policy languages express spending intentions
00:22:15 Compilers optimize transaction costs
00:23:46 Miniscript limitations and optional adoption
00:25:57 Minsc and practical wallet integration
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
30 min
September 25, 2020 Breaking Down Taproot Activation Options - NADO 3
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
Chapters
00:00:00 The Taproot activation debate
00:02:53 Soft forks, compatibility and flag days
00:06:38 Miner readiness signaling and BIP9
00:09:08 SegWit, BIP148 and BIP91
00:14:19 BIP8 and optional forced signaling
00:20:24 Modern Soft Fork Activation and a review pause
00:24:43 A one-year deadline and the ability to abort
00:27:11 Independent activation clients and early deadlines
00:33:37 Combining long windows with later activation pressure
00:38:26 Patience, review time and governance precedents
Support the Show! Follow Bitcoin Magazine on Twitter @BitcoinMagazine Follow Aaron van Wirdum @AaronvanW Follow Sjors Provoost @provoost Music: Song Title: Segwit SoundsBy: The NakamoTonesAlbum: Citadel MusicProduced by: Bitcoin Audio
45 min