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Aaron van Wirdum

Aaron van Wirdum is interested in technology and how it affects social and political structures. He has been covering Bitcoin since 2013, focusing on privacy, scalability and more. Hodls BTC.

Articles From This Author

X is fiat 3
Takes

X Is Fiat

By Aaron van Wirdum
Takes
IMF El Salvador
Takes

The IMF Just Improved El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law

By Aaron van Wirdum
Takes
Governments buying bitcoin
Takes

Governments And Large Institutions Can Buy All The Bitcoin They Want (Except Yours)

By Aaron van Wirdum
Takes
Soft forks
Takes

The lack of soft forks is due to a lack of interest— not a lack of process

By Aaron van Wirdum
Takes
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Gary Gensler’s Departure Is No Triumph For Bitcoin

By Aaron van Wirdum
Takes
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Takes

No, BlackRock Won’t Ossify Bitcoin

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
Trump shitcoin
Takes

Trump’s Coin Is About As Revolutionary As OneCoin

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
Not Bitcoins birthday
Takes

No, Today Is Not Bitcoin’s Birthday

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
Money Electric
Takes

Money Electric: Being Distracted By Nonsense

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
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Takes

The ECB Economists Aren't Exactly Wrong About Bitcoin (They’re Just Useless)

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
Bitcoin is no fait accompli
Takes

Bitcoin Is No Fait Accompli

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
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Takes

AARON: Trump Does Not Give A Damn About Bitcoin

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
Screenshot 2024-09-30 at 10.22.08 AM
Technical

Ocean’s DATUM Is Tackling Bitcoin’s Most Pressing Problem

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
Privacy - Aaron van Wirdum - Article Preview
Print

The Fight for Bitcoin Privacy Has Truly Begun

By Aaron van Wirdum
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Legal

Developing Financial Privacy Tools Was Today Criminalized by the Dutch Court

By Aaron van Wirdum
Opinion
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Legal

The Trial That Could End Craig Wright’s Satoshi Claim For Good Started Today

By Aaron van Wirdum
News
EXTROPIAN - image006
Culture

How The Extropian Quest For Digital Cash Secured Our Trips To The Stars

By Aaron van Wirdum
Feature
The Beaches Of El Salvador
Culture

El Salvador: One Small Step For Bitcoin

By Aaron van Wirdum
Feature
Technical - Bitcoin Core 0.17.0 Is Released: Here’s What’s New
Technical

Bitcoin Core 22.0 Released: What’s New

By Aaron van Wirdum
As Taproot, the latest consensus protocol change, approaches activation, Bitcoin developers are asking how exactly the network should be upgraded.
Technical

Taproot Locks In: Bitcoin Protocol Upgrade Will Activate In November

By Aaron van Wirdum
- The Genesis Files: With Bit Gold
Bitcoin Events & Conferences 2024

Interview: Nick Szabo On His Bitcoin 2021 Keynote About Bitcoin And The History Of Money

By Aaron van Wirdum
Technical - Taproot Is Coming: What It Is
Technical

There Are Now Two Taproot Activation Clients, Here’s Why

By Aaron van Wirdum
11 years ago, Bitcoin was etched into history with the mining of the Genesis Block. Here’s a data-driven look at how it has grown since last year.
Technical

LOT=true Or LOT=false? This Is The Last Hurdle Before Taproot Activation

By Aaron van Wirdum
Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 introduces new features, performance improvements and takes big steps toward the Schnorr and Taproot protocol upgrade.
Technical

Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 Released: What’s New

By Aaron van Wirdum
In 2020, the Bitcoin development community introduced a number of useful new features, important upgrades and notable improvements.
Technical

Bitcoin’s 2020 In Tech

By Aaron van Wirdum
RSK Introduces Bitcoin Sidechain Powpeg
Technical

RSK Is Evolving; Powpeg Leverages Hash Power To Switch From Bitcoin To Sidechain And Back

By Aaron van Wirdum
Bitcoin development nonprofit Brink has awarded its first fellowship to Gloria Zhao, who will work on package relay for Bitcoin mempools.
Technical

Gloria Zhao And Brink Are Set To Give Bitcoin Mempools An Upgrade

By Aaron van Wirdum
Brink, a nonprofit founded by John Newbery and Mike Schmidt, will offer fellowship and support to Bitcoin and Bitcoin-adjacent developers.
Technical

John Newbery’s New Nonprofit Brink Will Train And Support Bitcoin Developers

By Aaron van Wirdum
Major bitcoin mining pool Poolin has launched an initiative activate Taproot, which will ultimately require miner support.
Business

Poolin Launches Initiative To Activate Taproot, Encouraging Other Mining Pools To Join

By Aaron van Wirdum
Two years after Bitcoin SV split from Bitcoin Cash, another hard fork and community dispute could fork BCH again.
Business

Bitcoin Cash Might Split Again This Weekend. This Is Why (And How)

By Aaron van Wirdum
Pioneering cryptographer Hal Finney saw the need for an untraceable form of digital cash, and his work ultimately fostered the creation of Bitcoin.
Culture

The Genesis Files: How Hal Finney’s Quest For Digital Cash Led To RPOW (And More)

By Aaron van Wirdum
Payment pools, a potential Layer Two solution made possible through Taproot, could let groups of bitcoin users share UTXOs and enjoy more privacy.
Culture

Building on Taproot: Payment Pools Could Be Bitcoin’s Next Layer Two Protocol

By Aaron van Wirdum
The Human Rights Foundation is donating 1 BTC each to three developers focused on increasing Bitcoin’s usability.
Culture

The Human Rights Foundation Awards Grants to Three More Bitcoin Projects

By Aaron van Wirdum
As Taproot, the latest consensus protocol change, approaches activation, Bitcoin developers are asking how exactly the network should be upgraded.
Technical

BIP 8, BIP 9 or Modern Soft Fork Activation: How Bitcoin Could Upgrade Next

By Aaron van Wirdum
Culture

The Human Rights Foundation Is Now Funding Bitcoin Privacy Development, Starting With CoinSwap

By Aaron van Wirdum
Bitcoin Core
Technical

Bitcoin Core 0.20.0 Released: What’s New

By Aaron van Wirdum
An Interview with Ztohoven Artist Martin Fischer
Culture

Screen Printing, Paralelní Polis and Cryptoanarchy With Martin Fischer

By Aaron van Wirdum
The crypto anarchist story of Dark Wallet, the first bitcoin wallet with a CoinJoin mixer built in.
Culture

CoinJoin’s First Steps: How Dark Wallet Paved the Way for a More Private Bitcoin

By Aaron van Wirdum
Technical

How Bitcoin Optech Is Connecting the Open-Source and Corporate Worlds

By Aaron van Wirdum
Technical

Paying Yourself? Self-Payments Could Be a Key to Lightning Privacy

By Aaron van Wirdum
Lightning Labs announced a $10 million Series A funding round and released its Lightning Loop service in beta.
Technical

Lightning Labs Announces $10 Million Raise As Lightning Loop Enters Beta

By Aaron van Wirdum
Knapsack mixing offers efficiency and privacy improvements over equal-amount bitcoin mixing.
Culture

Do CoinJoin Mixes Really Require Equal Transaction Amounts for Privacy? Part Two: Knapsack

By Aaron van Wirdum
Payswap, from pseudonymous developer “ZmnSCPxj,” offers a simple-yet-effective trick to confuse blockchain analysis and obscure bitcoin transactions.
Culture

How Payswap Can Confuse Blockchain Analysts, Benefiting Bitcoin Privacy for All

By Aaron van Wirdum
A new mixing protocol called CashFusion challenges the assumption that CoinJoins require equal amounts for the mix to be effective.
Culture

Do CoinJoins Really Require Equal Transaction Amounts for Privacy? Part One: CashFusion

By Aaron van Wirdum
Bitcoin’s longest stretch without consensus forks may come to an end in 2020, with several backward-compatible soft forks currently in development.
Technical

2020 and Beyond: Bitcoin’s Potential Protocol Upgrades

By Aaron van Wirdum
As 2019 comes to an end, let’s take a look at the most impactful new technologies that were released for Bitcoin.
Technical

Bitcoin’s 2019 in Tech: What This Year Brought Us (Part 1)

By Aaron van Wirdum
Leveraging Lightning, Bitfinex Users Can Now Shop at Bitrefill
Technical

Leveraging Lightning, Bitfinex Users Can Now Shop at Bitrefill

By Aaron van Wirdum
Easypaysy Bitcoin accounts
Technical

Does Bitcoin Need Accounts? One Developer Thinks So, and He Figured Out How

By Aaron van Wirdum
Technical - Bitcoin Core 0.17.0 Is Released: Here’s What’s New
Technical

Bitcoin Core 0.19.0 Released: Here’s What’s New

By Aaron van Wirdum
SNICKER, a draft BIP, could allow for bitcoin mixing without any synchronization or interaction between users.
Culture

SNICKER: How Alice and Bob Can Mix Bitcoin With No Interaction

By Aaron van Wirdum