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.

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.

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

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.

The episode from "Bitcoin Explained" podcast, hosted by Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost, discusses a complex issue in the Bitcoin protocol known as the "Block 1, 983, 702 Problem." The dialogue delves into the historical bug in Bitcoin's protocol that allowed for the existence of duplicate transactions, leading to potential consensus failure and the loss of Bitcoin for miners. This problem, stemming from an "OG Satoshi bug, " has been partially addressed over time through various Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs), specifically BIP30 and BIP34, which aimed to prevent duplicate transactions by ensuring unique coinbase transactions in each block. However, a subsequent realization highlighted a loophole: early blocks (pre-BIP34) could contain numerical sequences in their coinbase transactions that might accidentally be replicated in future blocks, posing a potential risk of creating duplicate transactions again. This issue, dubbed the "Block 1, 983, 702 Problem, " could theoretically allow an attacker to exploit this loophole, though it would require significant resources and specific conditions to be feasible. To mitigate this risk, a temporary fix was implemented in 2018, deciding to reinstate BIP30 checks from block 1, 983, 702 onwards, giving the Bitcoin community time to find a more permanent solution. Several potential fixes are discussed, including making SegWit mandatory for all blocks, which would inherently prevent the duplication issue by ensuring a unique identifier in each block that was not present in pre-BIP34 blocks. Throughout the conversation, Provoost and van Wirdum explore the technical nuances of the problem, the historical context of its discovery, and the implications for Bitcoin's security and consensus mechanism. They emphasize the importance of proactive problem-solving in the Bitcoin community while acknowledging the complexities involved in implementing changes to the protocol.

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.

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.

In this episode, Aaron and Sjors discuss a recent blog post by Bitcoin Core developer Anthony Towns, “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 explain what some of Towns’ proposed solutions are, and which tradeoffs they entail.

Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:21 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin... Sjors Provoost: 00:00:24 Explained. Introduction Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:24 Hey, Sjors, we're back. We're back in beautiful, sunny Utrecht after I spent some time in Miami and Prague. You spent some time in Prague, and more Prag...

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.

Introduction Aaron Van Wirdum: 00:00:20 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin Explained. Sjors, we're gonna lean into some Twitter controversy today. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:27 Exactly, we have to jump on the bandwagon and make sure that we talk about what other people talk about. Aaron Van Wirdum: ...

Introduction Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:20 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin Explained. Sjors, welcome back. I saw you were promoting your book everywhere in the world over the past couple of weeks. Where did you go? Sjors Provoost: 00:00:31 Absolutely. I went to a place called New York, a place c...

Intro Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:20 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin Sjors Provoost: 00:00:23 Explained. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:24 Hey Sjors. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:25 What's up? Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:26 I'm good. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:27 How do you like the weather? Aaron van Wirdum: ...

Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:19 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin... Sjors Provoost: 00:00:21 Explained! (Ad removed) Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:41 All right, let's move on. Sjors, today, you've got a new hobby. Sjors Provoost: 00:01:46 I have a new hobby. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:47 What am I loo...

Intro Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:19 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin Explained. Hey Sjors. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:24 What's up? Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:25 How exciting. Two weeks ago you told me that maybe you would go to Bitcoin Amsterdam. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:31 Yes. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:0...

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 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 Addresses and Reusable Payment Codes, the benefit of Silent Payments is that addresses can be posted publicly without harming users’ privacy; snoops cannot link the publicly posted address to the actual Bitcoin addresses that the recipient is paid on. Meanwhile, unlike Stealth Addresses and Reusable Payment Codes, Silent Payments do not require any additional blockchain data— though this does come at a computational cost for the recipient. The podcast episode details all this in roughly two parts. In the first half of the episode, Ruben, Aaron and Sjors break down how Silent Payments work, and in the second half of the episode they discuss how Silent Payments compare to Stealth Addresses and Reusable Payment Codes, as well as some potential implementation issues.

Intro Aaron: Live from Utrecht, this is **Bitcoin, Explained**. Hey Sjors. Sjors: What's up? Aaron: Sjors Provoost, Bitcoin Core contributor and author. Sjors: Oh yes. Aaron: Congratulations! Sjors: Thank you. Aaron: Your new book, [Bitcoin: A Work in Progress]( is now available on Amazon? S...

Intro Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:20 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin Explained. Sjors, are we still making a bi-weekly podcast? Sjors Provoost: 00:00:28 I mean, it depends on what you mean by bi. It's more like a feeling, right? Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:32 We make a podcast when we feel about it...

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 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 explains what the benefits are of burying a soft fork, in particular pointing out how it helps developers when they review the Bitcoin Core codebase or when they perform tests on it. After that, Aaron and Sjors outline a potential edge case scenario where burying soft forks could, in a worst-case scenario, split the Bitcoin blockchain between upgraded and non-upgraded nodes. Bitcoin Core developers generally don't consider this edge case - a very long block re-org - to be a realistic problem and/or believe that this would be such a big problem that a buried soft fork would be a minor concern comparatively. However, they explain, not everyone agrees with this assessment entirely. Finally, Aaron and Sjors touch on issues like whether soft fork activation logic should itself be considered a soft fork, and whether soft fork burying logic should be considered a consensus change and/or require a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP).

Preamble Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:20 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin Explained. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:23 Hello. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:24 Hey Sjors. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:25 What's up? Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:26 I'm doing well. We're still in Utrecht as I just said, but only for a coup...

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 Bitcoin nodes shared large amounts of IP-addresses that weren’t associated with real Bitcoin nodes at all. While this attack did not do very much damage, it did waste resources from nodes on the network. On top of that, Aaron and Sjors explain, the attack could offer the attacker insight into Bitcoin’s network topology by analyzing how the fake IP-addresses spread through the network. Finally, Aaron and Sjors discuss how the attack was solved by rate limiting the amount of IP-addresses than any node will allow its peers to be shared. Further, they consider how in free and open source software development, fixing problems is not always as straightforward as it may seem…

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.

Intro Aaron: 00:00:20 Welcome to Bitcoin Explained, the podcast with the most boring name in Bitcoin. Hey Sjors. Sjors: 00:00:27 What's up? What's with the new name? Aaron: 00:00:29 So We've rebranded our podcast. What do you think? Sjors: 00:00:33 Well, I think, you know, especially if you ...

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 for fiat denominated), and the invoice can only be used once. BOLT 12, which has been implemented in c-ligtning, is a way to essentially refer a payer to the node that is to be paid, in order to request a new invoice. While the BOLT 12 offer can be static and reusable — it always refers to the same node — the payee can generate new invoices on the fly when requested, allowing for much more flexibility, Sjors explains. Finally, Aaron and Sjors discuss how the new BOLT 12 messages are communicated over the Lightning Network through an update to the BOLT 7 specification for message relay.

Intro Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:08 Live from Utrecht, Aruba and Utrecht, the Netherlands, this is The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:15 Hello, welcome, and listeners, sorry for the maybe not perfect sound quality, because we have to make do with the remote recording. Aaron van Wirdum...

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.

Preamble Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:07 Live from Utrecht, this is the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:10 Hello again. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:12 We've done it again, Sjors. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:14 We've done it again. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:15 We recorded the whole episode witho...

Intro Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:45 Live, from Utrecht, this is The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Hello. Ruben Somsen: 00:01:48 Hello. Sjors Provoost: 00:01:49 Hey, who's there? Ruben Somsen: 00:01:51 It's another Dutch guy. Sjors Provoost: 00:01:53 Welcome to the show, Ruben. Ruben Somsen: 00:01:54...

Aaron: 00:01:46 Live from Utrecht. This is The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Hello. Sjors, we're going to talk about a classic today. Sjors: 00:01:52 Yeah. We're going to party like it's 2015. Aaron: 00:01:55 SegWit. Segregated Witness Sjors: 00:01:56 That's right. Aaron: 00:01:57 Segregated Witn...

In this episode of "The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, " hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed Speedy Trial, the proposed Taproot activation mechanism that has been gaining traction in recent weeks. They explained that Speedy Trial would give miners three months to signal support for the Taproot upgrade with their hash power. If a supermajority of miners signals support for the upgrade within these three 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 three months, the upgrade will expire and a new upgrade path can be considered. (It is, as of yet, not defined what the potential alternative upgrade path would look like). Van Wirdum explained that Speedy Trial was born out of a compromise between developers and users who preferred different upgrade mechanisms for the Taproot soft fork, while Provoost detailed what some of the more technical implementation considerations of Speedy Trial are, like the benefits of using block heights instead of timestamps, and the extended delay between signaling and enforcement. Finally, the hosts discussed some of the downsides and risks of Speedy Trial.

Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:46 Live from Utrecht this is The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Hello! Are you running the BIP8 True independent client yet? Sjors Provoost: 00:01:56 Negative. I did not even know there was one. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:59 One has been launched, started. I don't think it's actuall...

In this episode of "The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, " hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed 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 upgrade will expire. (After which it could be redeployed.) LOT=true also lets miners activate the soft fork through hash power, but if they fail to do this within that year, nodes will activate the soft fork regardless. Van Wirdum and Provoost discussed the benefits and detriments of each option. This also includes possible scenarios of what could happen if some users set LOT to true, while other users set LOT to false, and the associated risks. Finally, the hosts discussed what they think is most likely going to happen with Taproot activation.

Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:45 Live from Utrecht this is the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. So the other day I wanted to send Bitcoin to someone, but I didn't. Sjors Provoost: 00:01:52 Why? Shouldn't you hodl? Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:55 I hodl all I can, but sometimes I need to eat, or I need to pay my rent...

In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss Replace By Fee (RBF). 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 block space by updating transactions to include more recipients (3). The main disadvantage of RBF is that it makes it slightly easier to double spend unconfirmed transactions, which was also at the root of last week’s “double spend” controversy that dominated headlines. Aaron and Sjors discuss some solutions to diminish this risk, including “opt-in RBF” which is currently implemented in Bitcoin Core. Finally, Sjors explains in detail how opt-in RBF works in Bitcoin Core, and which conditions must be met before a transaction is considered replaceable. He also notes some complications with this version of RBF, for example in the context of the Lightning Network.

Introduction Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:34 Live from Utrecht, this is The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Sjors Provoost: 00:01:37 Hello. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:38 Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Did I say it right this time? Sjors Provoost: 00:01:42 I don't know. We're not going to check again. This is take numb...

Intro Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:35 Live from Utrecht, this is The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Episode 24, we're going to discuss Bitcoin Core 21. Sjors Provost: 00:01:46 Hooray. Well, 0.21. We're still in the age of the zero point releases. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:01:51 Yes, which is ending now. Sjors P...

In this episode of "The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, " hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discussed 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 harder. Furthermore, even if the open-source code is sound, this doesn’t guarantee that the binaries (computer code) really correspond with the open-source code. Van Wirdum and Provoost explain how this risk is largely mitigated in Bitcoin through a process called Gitian building, where several Bitcoin Core developers sign the binaries if, and only if, they all produced the exact same binaries from the same source code. This requires special compiler software. Finally, the hosts discuss Guix, a relatively new project that goes above and beyond the Gitian process to minimize the level of trust required to turn source code into binaries — including trust in the compiler itself.

In 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. They explain how this works exactly, and discuss some of Powpeg’s security tradeoffs.

Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:07 Live from Utrecht, this is The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:10 Hello! Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:10 Hey Sjors. What's up? We got a market cap all time high, did you celebrate? Sjors Provoost: 00:00:14 No, I did not because it's just dilution. Aaron van ...

The discussion revolves around eclipse attacks against Bitcoin's peer-to-peer network, as described in a 2015 paper. Eclipse attacks isolate a node, controlling its network connections to manipulate transaction visibility and block information. The transcript outlines the mechanism of these attacks, including the strategic overflow of a node's address list and inducing node restarts. It also covers the potential for facilitating double-spend attacks and splitting the miner network. Mitigation strategies implemented in Bitcoin Core are discussed, including improvements in peer selection and connection management. These measures increase the resilience of the network against eclipse attacks by reducing attackers' ability to monopolize a node's view of the blockchain, showcasing the ongoing efforts to secure Bitcoin against such vulnerabilities.

In this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss Open Timestamps, a Bitcoin-based time stamping project from 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. Aaron and Sjors explain that virtually any amount of data can, in fact, be timestamped in the Bitcoin blockchain at minimal cost because Open Timestamps leverages Merkle trees, the cryptographic trick to aggregate data into a single, compact hash. This hash is then included in a Bitcoin transaction, making all of the data aggregated into the hash as immutable as any other Bitcoin transaction. Todd offered an interesting showcase of Open Timestamps earlier this week, as he proved that the public key used by Google to sign “the email" to Hunter Biden indeed existed in 2016. Aaron and Sjors also discuss some of the other possibilities that a time-stamping system like Open Timestamps offers, as well as its limitations. Finally, Aaron provides a little bit of context for the history of cryptographic time stamping, which was itself referenced in the Bitcoin white paper

The discussion revolves around Utreexo, a novel proposal aimed at enhancing Bitcoin's scalability by optimizing the UTXO set storage through a compact, Merkle tree-based structure. Utreexo seeks to address the challenges of node synchronization speeds and RAM usage by allowing nodes to store a much smaller representation of the UTXO set, thus potentially accelerating the syncing process and making the network more efficient. The conversation delves into the technical mechanisms of Utreexo, its implementation challenges, and the practical benefits it offers, including reduced memory requirements and the facilitation of faster node operations. While acknowledging Utreexo's promising advantages for Bitcoin's scalability, the participants also weigh its potential downsides, such as increased bandwidth for block transmission and the necessity for significant network adoption to realize its full benefits.

On this episode of The Van Wirdum Sjorsnado, Aaron and Sjors discuss “Assume UTXO, ” a proposal and project by Chaincode Labs alumnus James O’Beirne. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, bottlenecks for scaling Bitcoin 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, which ensures that new Bitcoin nodes don’t waste time validating (potentially) weaker blockchains. In recent years, sync-time has been improved with “Assume Valid, ” an optional shortcut that lets nodes skip signature verification of older transactions, instead trusting that the Bitcoin Core development process in combination with the resource-expensive nature of mining offers a reliable version of transaction history. Finally, they explain how the security assumptions underpinning Assume Valid could be extended to allow for the potential future upgrade Assume UTXO to offer new Bitcoin Core users a speedy solution to get up to speed with the Bitcoin network, sacrificing a minimal amount of security during the initial bootstrapping phase.

Introduction Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:07 Live from Utrecht, this is the Van Wirdum Sjorsnado. Sjors, you pointed out to me that Bitcoin Core has an amazing new feature merged into its repository. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:19 Absolutely, we have bigger onions now. Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:24 Right, s...

In this episode Sjors and Aaron discuss Jose Femenias' Easypaysy proposal, an account system for Bitcoin, on Bitcoin

Intro Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:07 Live from Utrecht, this is the Van Wirdum Sjorsnedo. Hello! Sjors, welcome. Sjors Provoost: 00:00:12 Thank you. It's good to be back. Well, I never left, but... Aaron van Wirdum: 00:00:15 Yeah, well, we're at your home now, so you never left, I think. You proba...

The podcast episode "What is Miniscript" delves into Miniscript, a simplified version of Bitcoin Script developed by Pieter Wuille, Andrew Poelstra, and Sanket Kanjalkar from Blockstream. Miniscript is described as a template of Bitcoin Script, aimed at making it easier to write, analyze, and reason about Bitcoin smart contracts. The discussion covers the basics of Bitcoin Script, its problems such as complexity and potential for errors, and how Miniscript addresses these issues by providing a standardized way to use a subset of Bitcoin Script's functionality. The episode also introduces the concept of a policy language, a higher-level programming language that can be compiled into Miniscript, facilitating even easier script creation for developers. Additionally, the limitations of Miniscript and its place within the Bitcoin ecosystem are discussed, highlighting its role as a tool for developers rather than a consensus change.

This podcast episode delves into the nuances of Bitcoin soft fork activation, with a particular focus on the upcoming Taproot activation. Hosts Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost discuss the history and mechanisms of soft fork activation, including the challenges faced during previous activations such as SegWit. They explore different proposals for activating Taproot, weighing the merits and drawbacks of methods like BIP 9, BIP 91, BIP 148 (UASF), and the newer BIP 8. The discussion highlights the importance of achieving consensus within the community and the complexities involved in coordinating upgrades across the decentralized Bitcoin network. The episode concludes with considerations for future soft fork activations, emphasizing patience, thorough review, and the potential for innovative solutions like "sporks" to address these challenges