Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of Bitcoin

Episode 93: The Great Consensus Cleanup Revival (And an Update on the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet Arrests)

May 29, 2024

Discussing the Great Consensus Cleanup Revival proposal to fix Bitcoin protocol bugs. Updates on Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet arrests. Emphasis on legal implications of non-custodial systems and addressing slow block validation in the network.

51:00

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

To prevent the time warp attack in Bitcoin, a solution involves ensuring that every block's first transaction timestamp must be within a four-hour window, two hours in the past or two hours in the future, to maintain the correct difficulty adjustment period and prevent miners from manipulating block times to accelerate coin mining, avoiding potential disruptions and premature exhaustion of the Bitcoin subsidy.

Bitcoin transactions can experience delays due to complex scripts that require extensive validation time, and proposed solutions involve implementing SegWit and Taproot rules for legacy transactions to improve processing speed without compromising security, aiming to streamline processing without sacrificing transaction integrity.

Deep dives

Fixing the Time Warp Attack in Bitcoin

To prevent the time warp attack in Bitcoin, a solution involves ensuring that every block's first transaction timestamp must be within a four-hour window, two hours in the past or two hours in the future. This fix aims to maintain the correct difficulty adjustment period and prevent miners from manipulating block times to accelerate coin mining, avoiding potential disruptions and premature exhaustion of the Bitcoin subsidy.

Introduction

2min

Legal Implications of Non-Custodial Systems

9min

Legal Transparency and Non-Custodial Services

4min

Analysis of Bitcoin Protocol Issues and Time Warp Attack

12min

Addressing Slow Block Validation and Efficient Transaction Design in Bitcoin Network

19min

Preventing Duplicate Transactions and Proposal for Additional Safeguards

3min

Navigating Bitcoin's Soft Fork Proposal for Consensus Cleanup

3min

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.

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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: npub1s6z7hmmx2vud66f3utxd70qem8cwtggx0jgc7gh8pqwz2k8cltuqrdwk4c

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

https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/

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