Tag: Van Wirdum Sjorsnado

Bitcoin Core 22.0 Explained

by Bitcoin Magazine

The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado has rebranded, and is now called Bitcoin, Explained!

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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. 

Van Wirdum and Provoost 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. 

The second highlighted upgrade is support for the Invisible Internet Project (I2P), a Tor-like internet privacy layer. 

Van Wirdum and Provoost also briefly touch on the differences between I2P and Tor. The third upgrade discussed in the episode is Taproot support. While Taproot activation logic was already included in Bitcoin Core 0.21.1 Bitcoin Core 22.0 is the first major Bitcoin Core release ready to support Taproot when it activates this November, and includes some basic Taproot functionality. 

The fourth upgrade that Aaron and Sjors discuss is an update to the testmempoolaccept logic, which paves the way to a bigger package relay upgrade. This could in a future release allow transactions to be transmitted over the Bitcoin network in packages including several transactions at the same time. 

Additionally, Aaron and Sjors briefly discuss an extension to create multisig and add multisig address, the new NAT-PMP option, and more.

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Hardware Bitcoin Security And Blockstream’s Jade Wallet

by Bitcoin Magazine

Two hands-on hardware wallet developers discuss bitcoin custody and its technicalities

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In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” Aaron van Wirdum conducted one more interview without his regular co-host Sjors Provoost. Instead, he was joined by Blockstream’s Lawrence Nahum, one of the developers behind the Jade wallet; and Ben Kaufman, one of the developers of the Specter wallet, which is specifically designed to work with hardware wallets.

Van Wirdum, Nahum and Kaufman talked about what hardware wallets are, and discussed the design tradeoffs that different hardware wallets have taken by focusing on — the Trezor, Ledger and Coldcard specifically. In this light, Nahum and Kaufman explained what secure elements and secure chips are, and why some hardware wallets choose to rely on using such chips more than others.

Then, Nahum explained which tradeoffs the Jade wallet makes. He also detailed how an additional server-based security step is used to further secure the Jade wallet, and he briefly outlined some additional differences in hardware wallet designs, for example those focused on usability.

Finally, van Wirdum, Nahum and Kaufman discussed whether the concept of hardware wallets are a good idea in the first place, or if it would perhaps be better to use dedicated smartphones to store your bitcoin.

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The Bitcoin Beach Wallet Special

by Bitcoin Magazine

In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” host Aaron van Wirdum speaks with Bitcoin Beach Wallet developer Nicolas Burtey.

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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. Van Wirdum and Burtey 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.

Van Wirdum and Burtey discussed the pros and cons of custodial and non-custodial Lightning wallets, and Burtey explains why he opted to make the Bitcoin Beach Wallet a shared-custodial wallet, and what that means exactly.

They go one to discuss some of the design decisions and tradeoffs that the Bitcoin Beach Wallet has made, which include ledger-based payments between Bitcoin Beach Wallet users as well as the webpage-based zero invoice payments to facilitate payments from other Lightning wallets. while Nicolas speculates about a potential cross-wallet user account system to further improve the Lightning user experience over time.

Van Wirdum and Burtey also discuss some of the subtle incompatibilities between different Lightning wallets that use different techniques for routing payments, privacy considerations versus user experience in a community like El Zonte’s and more.

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Discussing Lightning Network Routing

by Bitcoin Magazine

In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” the hosts are joined by Lightning developer Joost Jager to discuss Lightning Network routing.

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In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost are joined by Lightning developer Joost Jager to discuss everything about Lightning Network routing.

What Is Lightning Network Routing?

The Lightning Network — Bitcoin’s Layer 2 protocol for fast and cheap payments — consists of a network of payments channels. Each payment channel exists between two Lightning users. 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 forwards the payment from the payer to the payee.

The challenge is that a payment path across the network must be found, which allows the funds to move from the payer to the payee, and ideally would be the cheapest, fastest and most reliable payment path available.

Jager explains how Lightning nodes currently construct a map of the Lightning Network, and what information about all of the (publicly visible) payment channels is included in that map. Next, he outlines on what basis Lightning nodes calculate the best path over the network to reach the payee, and how the performance of this route factors into future path finding calculations.

Finally, van Wirdum, Provoost and Jager discuss some (potential) optimizations to benefit Lightning Network routing, such as rebalancing schemes and Trampoline Payments.

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Discussing Taproot’s Lock In

by Bitcoin Magazine

In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” the hosts discussed the lock in of Bitcoin’s Taproot soft fork upgrade.

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As discussed in previous episodes, Taproot is a Bitcoin protocol upgrade that will make smart contracts more compact, private and flexible. Van Wirdum and Provoost 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. The hosts went into further detail about what this means exactly, and what needs to happen before Taproot can ultimately be used on the Bitcoin network safely. Provoost also explained how upcoming Bitcoin Core releases will handle the Taproot upgrade, and what the Bitcoin Core wallet software will and will not enable, while also touching on potential use cases enabled by the upgrade.

Finally, van Wirdum and Provoost discussed the Speedy Trial activation process itself, and in particular the lessons learned by it, which could in turn inform future soft fork upgrades. They also briefly speculated on which protocol upgrades may be next in line.

This podcast is perfect for people who want to learn more about the technical side of Taproot. Van Wirdum and Provoost always provide great insight into the ongoing improvements and advancements of Bitcoin, and Taproot promises to be one of the most important updates in a long time.

Please enjoy this detailed and eye-opening conversation between van Wirdum and Provoost.

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Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) And The BIP Process

by Bitcoin Magazine

This episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado” covered Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) and how the process works.

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In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost explained what Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) are, and how the BIP process works. They discussed why the BIP process is a useful, yet non-binding, convention within Bitcoin’s technical community.

Van Wirdum and Provoost started off by explaining what a BIP is exactly — and what it is not. They also explained that only improvements to Bitcoin software that affect other projects require a BIP. The two went on to dive into the history of the BIP process a little bit, noting that the format was introduced by Libbitcoin developer Amir Taaki and later updated by Bitcoin Knots maintainer Luke Dashjr.

Finally, van Wirdum and Provoost explained how the BIP process itself works, that is, how a proposal can be turned into a BIP, and eventually be implemented in software. They also briefly explained how the BIP process could become corrupted, and why that wouldn’t be a very big deal.

This episode was originally scheduled to be aired on Friday, June 4, but was delayed due to last week’s Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami.

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Bitcoin Core’s CVE-2021-31876 Bug And Potential Complications

by Bitcoin Magazine

In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” the hosts discussed CVE-2021-31876, a bug in the Bitcoin Core code affecting replace-by-fee.

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In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed 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 bug in the Bitcoin Core code was recently discovered and disclosed by Antoine Riard, and added to the CVE overview.

Van Wirdum and Provoost explained that the bug affects how RBF logic is handled by the Bitcoin Core software. When one unconfirmed transaction includes an RBF flag (which means it should be considered replaceable if a conflicting transaction with a higher fee is broadcast over the network) any following transaction that spends coins from the original transaction should also be considered replaceable — even if the second transaction doesn’t itself have an RBF flag. Bitcoin Core software would not do this, however, which means the second transaction would in fact not be considered replaceable.

This is a fairly innocent bug; in most cases the second transaction will still confirm eventually, while there are also other solutions to speed confirmation up if the included fee is too low. But in very specific cases, like some fallback security mechanisms on the Lightning Network, the bug could in fact cause complications. Van Wirdum and Provoost tried to explain what such a scenario would look like — badly.

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Mara Pool And Bitcoin Mining Censorship

by Bitcoin Magazine

The hosts of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado” discussed Mara Pool, bitcoin mining pools that censor blocks and what Bitcoiners could do about this.

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In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed the emergence of Mara Pool, the American Bitcoin mining pool operated by Marathon Digital Holdings, which claims to be fully compliant with U.S. regulations. More generally, van Wirdum and Provoost discussed 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 U.S. regulations, which means it applies anti-money laundering (AML) checks and adheres to the sanction list of the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). While details have not been made explicit, this presumably means that this pool will not include transactions in its blocks if these transactions send coins to or from Bitcoin addresses that have been included on an OFAC blacklist.

Van Wirdum and Provoost discussed what it means that a mining pool is now censoring certain transactions, and they went on to expand on what it could look like if this practice gets adopted more widely. They considered what censoring mining pools could accomplish if they ever get close to controlling a majority of hash power, and what Bitcoin users could potentially do in such a scenario (if anything).

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Speedy Trial And The LOT=True Client

by Bitcoin Magazine

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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 different possible activation mechanisms and Speedy Trial specifically in previous episodes, in this episode they laid out the final implementation details of Speedy Trial.

In addition to that, they discussed an alternative activation path, which has been proposed by the pseudonymous Bitcoin Mechanic and Shinobi in their BIP 8 LOT=true activation client, officially named “Bitcoin Core 0.21.0-Based Taproot Client 0.1.” This client will initially be compatible with Bitcoin Core 0.21.1, including throughout the Speedy Trial phase.

Eventually however, there may be some scenarios where Bitcoin Core 0.21.1 and the LOT=true client could become incompatible. Van Wirdum and Provoost discussed some scenarios in which this could happen, and shared some additional thoughts about the two activation paths and clients.

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How SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT And Eltoo Could Improve The Lightning Network

by Bitcoin Magazine

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In this episode of “The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado,” hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost 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.

Van Wirdum and Provoost explained that SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT is a new type of sighash flag, which would sign most of the transaction, but not the inputs. This means that the inputs could be swapped, as long as the new inputs would still be compatible with the signature.

SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT would be especially useful in the context of Eltoo, a proposed Layer 2 protocol that would enable a new version of the Lightning Network. In place of how Lightning users currently need to store old channel data for security reasons, and could also be punished severely if they accidentally broadcast some of this data at the wrong time, van Wirdum and Provoost explained how SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT would do away with this requirement.

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