Stephan Livera

One of the pseudonymous founders of Samourai Wallet joins me in this exciting episode to talk about Bitcoin privacy techniques that are applied within the wallet and upcoming improvements to their Bitcoin wallet app. Anyone interested to learn more about how Samourai Wallet helps protect privacy will truly enjoy this episode.

We discuss:

• The mission statement of Samourai Wallet
• Taking a hardline stance on privacy and removing fiat references from the wallet
• How Samourai Wallet helps to maintain privacy by default
• PayNyms
• Coin Selection and Coin Control in the wallet
• Stonewall – transactions that look like a CoinJoin
• Boltzmann – analyzing transactions to identify how private they are
• Ricochet – premium feature adding 4 intermediate hops, protecting users from blockchain spies
• Whirlpool & Stowaway – a coming enhancement intended for ‘post-mix’ transactions
• Trusted Node – and the newly announced feature, ‘Dojo’ trusted node
• MuleTools and the GoTenna collaboration – TxTenna
• How users can support Samourai Wallet

Links:

• Samourai Wallet Website: https://samouraiwallet.com/

• Samourai Wallet on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samourai.wallet&hl=en_AU

• Samourai Wallet Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet

• Samourai Wallet Dev (TDevD) Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamouraiDev
• STONEWALL spend description: https://gist.github.com/SamouraiDev/4ced85a29996dd56781e2bf319b93aaf

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Website: StephanLivera.com Message/Follow me on twitter: @stephanlivera

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Francis Pouliot and Etienne Larrivee (CEO Satoshi Portal and Lead Developer Cyphernode), join me to talk about their newly released open source Bitcoin self-hosted API allowing you to more easily build Bitcoin services and applications. This enables businesses and users to reduce their reliance on commercial Bitcoin APIs, while still offering advanced features and utilities.

We talk:

• What is Cyphernode?
• Who is it for?
• Current reliance within the Bitcoin ecosystem on currently existing APIs, and what risks this presents
• Process of setting up a Cyphernode
• Some example functions (watching/generating addresses etc)
• Features to come in Cyphernode

Links:

• Cyphernode Github page: https://github.com/SatoshiPortal/cyphernode
• Satoshi Portal website: https://satoshiportal.com/en/
• Etienne Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kexkey
• Francis Twitter: https://twitter.com/francispouliot_

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Website: StephanLivera.com Message/Follow me on twitter: @stephanlivera

If you liked the podcast, don’t forget to give it a 5 star review and share it with your friends. Thanks guys.

Steve Barbour (Founder, Upstream Data) joins me to discuss how he is turning stranded natural gas into Bitcoin mining hashes. His HashGen product uses low value natural gas to improve the economics for Canadian Oil and Gas facilities, while powering Bitcoin mining ASICs. In this discussion we also talk about the ‘bitcoin energy use is wasted’ narrative, and how bitcoin mining was centralised in the past, but is now decentralising.

Links:

• Steve Barbour Twitter: @SGBarbour
• Upstream Data website: upstreamdata.ca

Subscribe to the Podcast: Apple | Libsyn | Stitcher | Spotify

Website: StephanLivera.com Message/Follow me on twitter: @stephanlivera

If you liked the podcast, don’t forget to give it a 5 star review and share it with your friends. Thanks guys.

Jeremy Welch (Founder of Casa) joins me in this episode to talk about crafting a business around the concept of safely storing bitcoin. We talk about the ethos of Casa, designing services for a sovereign individual, securing top tier talent, and Casa products.

Topics include:

• Company Mission of Casa
• Product type and ‘Built to Last’
• Hiring talent in Bitcoin
• Funding
• Customer types
• Product discussion (Casa Premium, and Casa Node)
• Roadmap
• Regulation
• Altcoins

Subscribe to the Podcast: Apple | Libsyn | Stitcher | Spotify

Site: StephanLivera.com Message/Follow me on twitter: @stephanlivera

If you liked the podcast, don’t forget to give it a 5 star review and share it with your friends. Thanks guys.

Sergej Kotliar, CEO of Bitrefill joins me to discuss taking bitcoin and lightning payments as an online merchant. We talked about the challenges and benefits of doing this, particularly in how lightning network simplifies the user experience and reduces errors. In the second part of the episode, we talk about ‘earner adoption’ – the idea that bitcoin’s ecosystem can grow from people earning it.

Sergej Kotliar links:

• Sergej’s twitter: @ziggamon
• Bitrefill website
• Bitrefill twitter: @bitrefill 

Podcast links:

StephanLivera.com | Libsyn | Apple | Stitcher | Spotify

DM/Follow me on twitter: @stephanlivera

If you liked the podcast, don’t forget to give it a 5 star review and share it with your friends. Thanks guys.

Adam Ficsor (nopara73), a Bitcoin privacy developer and CTO of zkSNACKs joins me to talk about his new wallet, Wasabi Wallet. We talk about:

• Privacy being for everyone
• Comparison with other privacy projects, such as Monero, or other Bitcoin mixing services
• ZeroLink framework
• How your Bitcoin Privacy can be broken
• How chain analysis works
• What Wasabi Wallet does to break chain analysis heuristics
• Upcoming Wasabi Wallet launch

Nopara73 (Adam Ficsor) links:

• zkSNACKS
• Wasabi Wallet
• Wasabi Wallet Github
• Wasabi Wallet Medium post
• Adam Ficsor Twitter: @nopara73
• Pay to EndPoint Medium post

Podcast links:

StephanLivera.com | Libsyn | Apple | Stitcher | Spotify

DM/Follow me on twitter: @stephanlivera

If you liked the podcast, don’t forget to give it a 5 star review and share it on social media, or share directly with your friends. Thanks guys.

Rusty Russell, a well known and respected Bitcoin Lightning developer at Blockstream  joins me in this episode. We talk about his article, The Three Economic Eras of Bitcoin, and discuss the Lightning Network for Bitcoin. Lastly, Rusty draws from his prior experience as a Linux kernel developer to contrast Linux development with Bitcoin and Lightning development practices and culture.

Specific topics include:

• The economic phases Bitcoin will go through
• Fee estimation
• The coming Bitcoin Civil War and how it may be fought in a similar fashion to the earlier Segwit2X debate
• Background on Lightning Network (great intro for newbies on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network)
• C-Lightning, the Blockstream Lightning software
• Coming changes to the Lightning spec e.g. splicing, fee estimation, AMP, eltoo
• Rusty’s thoughts on Lightning Network Reference Rate
• Linux development culture similarities and differences with Bitcoin & Lightning development culture

Rusty Links:

• Article Discussed: The Three Economic Eras of Bitcoin
• Rusty’s Twitter: @rusty_twit
• Rusty’s talk: Future Technological Directions in Bitcoin
• Blockstream – Elements Project / Lightning
• Lightning.Network Primer

Technical links:

• Dual Funding
• C-Lightning v0.6.1
• C-Lightning command: Getroute
• Lightning Charge
• Spark

Prior SLP episodes referenced in this podcast episode:

• SLP9 with Bryan Vu – Lightning Labs
• SLP7 with Nik Bhatia – LNRR

Podcast links:

• StephanLivera.com
• Libsyn
• Apple
• Stitcher
• Spotify

BTC Donations: Donation address and Samourai PayNym here on tallyco.in/stephanlivera

Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy. If you found this podcast valuable, please share it on social media.

Udi Wertheimer (Bitcoin software developer) joins me to discuss the use of unnecessary crypto-tokens, why some people do it, the use of non-crypto tokens in gaming, unnecessary blockchains, #reckless lightning development, and what he is looking forward to in Bitcoin and Lightning.

Udi links:

• Udi’s Twitter: @UdiWertheimer

Podcast links:

• Libsyn
• Apple
• Stitcher
• Spotify

Stephan Livera Podcast website: stephanlivera.com

If you have any questions or suggestions for me, come find me on twitter @stephanlivera

Jimmy Song (Bitcoin Educator, Developer, and Entrepreneur) joins me in this episode to discuss his recent debate with Roger Ver, and in the second half we also discuss Blockchain skepticism. We separate the signal from the noise on ‘enterprise blockchain’ technology by discussing the true costs and difficulties involved, and then discuss some alternatives to ‘enterprise blockchain’.

Link to the debate discussed:

• Youtube: Jimmy Song and Roger Ver debate on the Coinsbank Cruise

Jimmy Song links:

• Twitter: @jimmysong
• Programming Blockchain
• Youtube: Off Chain with Jimmy Song
• Medium: @jimmysong
  • Jimmy’s article: Why Blockchain is Hard
  • Jimmy’s article: Alternatives to blockchain

Podcast links:

• Libsyn
• Apple
• Stitcher
• Spotify
• Website: stephanlivera.com

BTC Donations: Donation address and Samourai PayNym here on tallyco.in/stephanlivera

Samson Mow, CSO of Blockstream (leading provider of blockchain technologies) joins me in this episode to discuss a variety of topics:

• Bitmain IPO
• Errors of cryptocurrency ‘diversification’
• When it makes sense to use a blockchain, when it doesn’t
• Why Blockstream builds mostly on bitcoin
• Blockstream products Cryptocurrency Data feed, and Liquid network
• Privacy
• Bitcoin Fee Market
• Samson’s Hat sales and blog

Samson and Blockstream links:

• Twitter: @Excellion
• Blockstream – https://blockstream.com/

  • Liquid: https://elementsproject.org/sidechains/liquid/

  • Crypto Data Feed: https://blockstream.com/2018/07/23/v2-crypto-data-feed.html

• Blog – The Lion’s Den – https://samsonmow.com/
• Hat store – https://www.excellion.com/

Podcast links:

• Apple
• Stitcher
• Spotify