Bitcoin, Explained — The Technical Side of Bitcoin

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain what new features are included in the upcoming Bitcoin Core 27.0 release.

https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoin-devwiki/wiki/27.0-Release-Candidate-Testing-Guide

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This episode’s sponsor: ⁠⁠⁠⁠CoinKite⁠⁠⁠⁠, maker of the ColdCard

Aaron’s Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@AaronvanW⁠⁠⁠⁠

Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5

Sjors’ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@provoost⁠⁠⁠⁠

Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

If you’d like to sponsor the show, please email info at bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com.

⁠https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors are once more joined by Breez developer Jesse de Wit, this time to explain splicing. Splicing allows users of the Lightning Network to effectively add or remove funds from an active channel, allowing for continuous payment and routing activity. Aaron, Sjors and Jesse discuss what challenges this entails, and how these challenges are overcome.

At the beginning of the episode, Sjors also gives a brief update on the ongoing TornadoCash trial in the Netherlands, and he addresses a recent block mined by Mara Pool.

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This episode’s sponsor: ⁠⁠⁠CoinKite⁠⁠⁠, maker of the ColdCard

Jesse’s Twitter: ⁠@WitDeJesse⁠

Jesse’s Nostr: npub18hwpk5qep3ptnmzatq22ptwr9mth7ccrku56rdntwpxjxlkfyr2qrav8du

Aaron’s Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@AaronvanW⁠⁠⁠

Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5

Sjors’ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@provoost⁠⁠⁠

Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

If you’d like to sponsor the show, please email info at bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com.

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors are joined by Breez developer Jesse de Wit to discuss asynchronous lightning payments. They explain why such payments would be useful, how they would work, and what building blocks are required to realize it. In the process, Aaron, Sjors and Jesse also cover the basics of PTLCs and Trampoline Payments.

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This episode’s sponsor: ⁠⁠CoinKite⁠⁠, maker of the ColdCard

Jesse’s Twitter: @WitDeJesse

Jesse’s Nostr: npub18hwpk5qep3ptnmzatq22ptwr9mth7ccrku56rdntwpxjxlkfyr2qrav8du

Aaron’s Twitter: ⁠⁠@AaronvanW⁠⁠

Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5

Sjors’ Twitter: ⁠⁠@provoost⁠⁠

Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss two more electronic cash projects that predate Bitcoin: Wei Dai’s b-money and Hal Finney’s RPOW. As detailed in Aaron’s new book, The Genesis Book, these systems introduced design elements that were later utilized by Satoshi Nakamoto. Aaron and Sjors explain what these elements are, and how the inspired Bitcoin’s design.

To buy Aaron’s new book, visit www.thegenesisbook.com.

Mentioned:

B-money (archive link): https://web.archive.org/web/20050211031649/http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai/bmoney.txt

RPOW (archive link): https://nakamotoinstitute.org/finney/rpow/index.html

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This episode’s sponsor: ⁠CoinKite⁠, maker of the ColdCard

Aaron’s Twitter: ⁠@AaronvanW⁠

Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5

Sjors’ Twitter: ⁠@provoost⁠

Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

If you’d like to sponsor the show, please email info at bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com

⁠https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss two electronic cash projects that predate Bitcoin: Adam Back’s Hashcash and Nick Szabo’s Bit Gold. As detailed in Aaron’s new book, The Genesis Book, these systems introduced design element that were later utilized by Satoshi Nakamoto. Aaron and Sjors explain what these elements are, and how they inspired Bitcoin’s design.

To buy Aaron’s new book, visit ⁠www.thegenesisbook.com⁠.

Mentioned:

* 1992 Dwork & Naor: Pricing via Processing or Combatting Junk Mail

* 2002 Back: Hashcash - A Denial of Service Counter-Measure

* Bit Gold: Bitcoin Magazine article (1998)

* One-way function: Wikipedia

* Secure-benchmark function: Intrapolynomial Cryptography (1999)

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This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard

Aaron’s Twitter: @AaronvanW

Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5

Sjors’ Twitter: @provoost

Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

If you’d like to sponsor the show, please email info at bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com

https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss the so-called “block 1,983,702 problem”. They explain how a bug in early Bitcoin implementations could in rare cases cause a loss of funds, or in a worst-case scenario even lead to consensus failures, while they also explain how BIP 30 and BIP 34 solved this problem. As it turns out, however, BIP 34 introduced a new problem, that could become an issue about twenty years from now…

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This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard

Aaron’s Twitter: @AaronvanW

Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5

Sjors’ Twitter: @provoost

Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

If you’d like to sponsor the show, please email info at bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com

https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain what features are offered by Ocean, the relaunched and rebranded Eligius mining pool. They discuss how payouts from this pool are (partially) non-custodial, how the block template creation is fully transparent, and how payout distribution is determined. Aaron and Sjors also briefly touch on the “spam” filtering employed by Ocean, and how that potentially affects profitability of the pool.

Our new sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard

In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain what new features are included in the upcoming Bitcoin Core 0.26 release. They also briefly discuss recent developments concerning the transaction inclusion policy of mining pool F2Pool, which appears to have been compliant with the OFAC sanctions list.

Link to testing guide: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoin-devwiki/wiki/26.0-Release-Candidate-Testing-Guide



In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss an invalid block mined by Marathon Pool. They explain why the block was invalid, what caused it (and what didn’t), and why that didn’t affect the Bitcoin network.



Aaron and Sjors also provide some updates about the show, and what that means moving forward.



Finally, Sjors briefly mentions some notable Bitcoin Core updates that were recently merged.



For more information on the invalid block, also see: https://b10c.me/observations/07-invalid-block-809478/

In this episode, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) discuss a vulnerability in Libbitcoin dubbed “Milk Sad”, which allowed people to generate private key seeds with such weak entropy that their private keys could be brute forced and their coins stolen. Aaron and Sjors examine how this vulnerability (could have) ended up in Libbitcoin as well as in Andreas Antonopoulos’ book Mastering Bitcoin, to what extent it should be considered a bug, and more.

Addendum 2023-08-18: The Mersenne Twister pseudo-random number generated was not intended to be cryptographically secure. So my claim that it was thought to be secure was incorrect. It’s simply the wrong tool for the job (of creating a private key with real money at stake).

Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425

THIS EPISODE’S SPONSORS:

⁠Voltage Cloud⁠

⁠Bitcoin Magazine⁠