Interview | Description | Timestamps | Show Notes

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Location: Zoom
Date: Friday, 10th April
Project: Blockstream
Role: Director of Research

Bitcoin is very conservative. Unlike the typical tech industry ethos of move fast and break things, it is paramount that Bitcoin upgrades and changes to the protocol are absolutely necessary, slow, well planned and well tested.

Two protocol changes that have been discussed for a while now are Schnorr signatures and Taproot. These proposals have lots of positive implications, including an improvement to privacy and scalability, but what will it mean for an average Bitcoin user? What is next on the roadmap?

In this interview, I talk to Andrew Poelstra, the Director of Research at Blockstream. We discuss the upcoming upgrades to the Bitcoin protocol, including Schnorr signatures, Taproot and Miniscript and what that means to Bitcoin users.

00:04:20: Introductions
00:05:08: Lockdown in Austin
00:06:23: Bitcoin halving
00:12:43: Bitcoin Difficulty adjustment
00:16:01: Various difficulty adjustment algorithms
00:20:09: Miniscript
00:25:49: Descriptors
00:29:35: How does miniscript benefit developers
00:32:07: How will miniscript affect users
00:42:26: Taproot
00:47:58: Peer review and development of Taproot
00:51:38: Schnorr signatures
00:55:08: How will Taproot affect users
00:55:30: Is Andrew concerned about Taproot implementation
01:01:55: Hidden work by Bitcoin developers
01:05:29: Potential upcoming changes to SIGHASH mode
01:13:56: Future developments on multisignatures
01:24:13: Positive outlook for Bitcoin’s future
01:24:57: Final comments

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• Connect with Andrew:

  • On LinkedIn

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• Mentioned in the interview: 

  • Bitcoin Difficulty

  • Bitcoin Halving 2020, Explained

  • Bitcoin Block Reward Halving Countdown

  • BCash Post Halving: Two Hour Blocks, Hash Rate Hit 

  • Miniscript 

  • Elliptic-curve cryptography

  • Bitcoin Core 

  • Taproot Is Coming: What It Is, and How It Will Benefit Bitcoin

  • Schnorr 

  • Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm 

  • Segregated Witness 

  • Multisignature 

  • Lightning Network

  • CoinJoin

• Other relevant WBD podcasts:

  • WBD187: Beginner’s Guide #6: How Bitcoin Works with Shinobi

  • WBD134: John Newbery on Building a Bitcoin Developer Community

  • WBD132: Pieter Wuille on Building Bitcoin

  • WBD126: Michel Rauchs on The Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

  • WBD110: Andrew Poelstra on Schnorr, Taproot & Graft Root Coming to Bitcoin

  • WBD085: Andrew Poelstra on Bitcoin Math & Research

  • WBD074: How Bitcoin Works with Matt Corallo

  • WBD057: Core Developer Bryan Bishop on Building Bitcoin

  • WBD037: Jimmy Song on the Game Theory of Bitcoin Attacks and why Proof of Work Needs to be Expensive