
Bitcoin Explained - The Technical Side of Bitcoin
Bitcoin Magazine's editor-in-chief Aaron van Wirdum teams up with Bitcoin Core contributor Sjors Provoost to explain Bitcoin one episode at a time.
Latest episodes

May 8, 2023 • 33min
Episode 78: Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs) (And Dutch Auctions)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron (@AaronvanW) and Sjors (@provoost) explain Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs), discussing what problems they solve, how they work, and some of the ways they are used. In the last part of the episode, the hosts zoom in on one particular PSBT use case called Dutch Auctions, which Bitcoin Magazine recently used to sell ordinals.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! - https://b.tc/conference/2023

Apr 24, 2023 • 37min
Episode 77: Peer-to-peer Encryption
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.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! - https://b.tc/conference/2023

Apr 15, 2023 • 51min
Episode 76: Stamps (And the Invalid Block Caused by It)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain Stamps, a new(?) protocol to upload images onto the Bitcoin blockchain, which end up in the UTXO set.
To learn more about some of the concepts mentioned in this episode, also check out episode 15 (Utreexo), episode 61 (OP_RETURN), episode 72 (Inscriptions) and episode 75 (Multisig).
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! - https://b.tc/conference/2023

Mar 31, 2023 • 53min
Episode 75: Multisig (And Musig)
In this episode, Aaron and Sjors explore the evolution of multisig in Bitcoin, from bare multisig to Taproot and Musig. They discuss the efficiency improvements with SegWit, TAP, and Schnorr signatures, revolutionizing multisig and fund protection strategies against threats like Martians.

Mar 17, 2023 • 43min
Episode 74: Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH)
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain pay-to-script-hash (P2SH), which allows bitcoin to be sent to and from the hash of a script. Besides (the current implementation of) P2SH itself, Aaron and Sjors also discuss some alternatives that were proposed around the time that P2SH was adopted in 2012.
For further reading on the history of P2SH, also see "The Battle for P2SH: The Untold History of Bitcoin’s First War"
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount!

Feb 24, 2023 • 41min
Episode 73: OP_VAULT
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain OP_VAULT, a proposed op code that would enable an elegant type of vaults through Bitcoin’s scripting language.
For more information, also see:
https://jameso.be/vaults.pdf
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/c589490f98ba1b0c606d0e2030463f1fde54b786/bip-vaults.mediawiki
===
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! https://b.tc/conference/2023

Feb 9, 2023 • 41min
Episode 72: Inscriptions
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors explain Inscriptions, a new method to upload arbitrary data onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Don't miss out on the biggest Bitcoin event of the year! B23 in Miami is coming up fast, get your tickets now!
Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! https://b.tc/conference/2023

Jan 20, 2023 • 33min
Episode 71: Timelocks
In this episode of Bitcoin, Explained, Aaron and Sjors discuss the different types of timelocks available on Bitcoin (and what can go wrong when used incorrectly).
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Lower your time preference and lock-in your Bitcoin 2023 conference tickets today!!! Use promo code BMLIVE to save 10% off your conference tickets today!!!
https://b.tc/conference/bitcoin2023
Follow us on Twitter:
- https://twitter.com/bitcoinmagazine
- https://twitter.com/videobitcoin

Dec 30, 2022 • 23min
Episode 70: The Bitcoin Core 24.0 Bug (Or Why There Is a Bitcoin Core 24.0.1 Release)
Aaron and Sjors explain how a wallet bug crept into the Bitcoin Core 24.0 release, and why there is now a Bitcoin Core version 24.0.1 available.
Episode Sponsor: https://voltage.cloud/
Sjors New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Technical-innovations-Sjors-Provoost/dp/9090360425
Lower your time preference and lock-in your Bitcoin 2023 conference tickets today!!!
Use promo code BMLIVE to save 10% off your conference tickets today!!! https://b.tc/conference/bitcoin2023
Follow us on Twitter:
- https://twitter.com/bitcoinmagazine
- https://twitter.com/videobitcoin

5 snips
Dec 2, 2022 • 40min
Episode 69: The Tornado Cash Trial
Aaron and Sjors explain what happened in the pro forma hearing concerning the trial against Alexy Pertsev, one of the developers behind the Ethereum-based Tornado Cash mixer. While this means that this episode dives more into the domain of Ethereum smart contracts and Dutch law, Aaron and Sjors do discuss the ongoing case from a Bitcoin perspective.
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Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2023 conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount!
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