Bitcoin, Explained — The Technical Side of Bitcoin

Hosted by Sjors Provoost

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Episodes

102

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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About the show

Bitcoin journalist Aaron van Wirdum teams up with Bitcoin Core contributor Sjors Provoost to explain Bitcoin one episode at a time.

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60 recent

August 26, 2026Episode 1011 hr 5 min

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 emergency broadcast.) Further reading: https://wizardsardine.com/blog/coldcard-rng-vulnerability/ https://engineering.block.xyz/blog/predictable-rng-fallback-and-32-bit-reseed-in-coldcard-firmware Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5⁠ Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3 If you’d like to sponsor the show, please email info at bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com. https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/

July 31, 20261 min

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/

July 15, 2026Episode 10041 min

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

November 6, 2025Episode 9950 min

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

May 8, 2025Episode 981 hr 13 min

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: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

April 20, 2025Episode 9747 min

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

February 5, 2025Episode 9647 min

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 some recent proposals to make decentralized mining pools like P2Pool more viable. === This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the COLDCARD. Aaron’s Nostr: ⁠npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5⁠ Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

October 7, 2024Episode 9543 min

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 file XOR. https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/ Release notes: ⁠https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/28.0/⁠ This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the COLDCARD. Aaron’s Nostr: ⁠npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5⁠ Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

July 7, 2024Episode 941 hr 0 min

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 generate public keys for transaction recipients, in such a way that these recipients can in turn generate the associated private keys. This benefits privacy, as Bitcoin users can freely share a static address, without this resulting in address reuse on the Bitcoin blockchain. Aaron, Sjors, Ruben and Josie recap how this works. and discuss some of the implementation details for the BIP, including how light clients can utilize Silent Payments, how these payments are made compatible with CoinJoin, and an extra feature called “labels”. === This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the ColdCard. Aaron’s Twitter: @AaronvanW Aaron’s Nostr: npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5 Sjors’ Twitter: @provoost Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3 Ruben’s Twitter: @SomsenRuben Josie’s Twitter: @josibake If you’d like to sponsor the show, please email info at bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com. https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/

May 29, 2024Episode 9351 min

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. Sjors also provides a quick update on the court case against Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev, and places this in the context of the recent arrests of Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill. === 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/

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