Deep dives into Bitcoin-native technologies, protocol development, cryptography and more.
FYI: I’m sending out new pods and Bitcoin technical updates via email going forward — sign up to get on the list: isabelfoxenduke.com (http://isabelfoxenduke.com)
The Evolution of Privacy Technologies on Bitcoin | Seth For Privacy
There are few people as close to the frontlines of Bitcoin privacy as Cake Wallet COO Seth for Privacy. After cutting his teeth building for Monero, Seth turned his focus to Bitcoin in 2022, with the view that making Bitcoin more private would ultimately help more people than focusing on a smaller niche target group alone.
“I would love for Monero not to need to exist,” says Seth, as we examine the technical hurdles of bringing true privacy to Bitcoin.
Although he believes that the ability to easily verify transactions on-chain is widely credited with helping Bitcoin gain early traction, Seth argues that its transparent design presents challenges that fundamentally challenge Bitcoin privacy, often making Bitcoin less private than the existing fiat system.
That said, Seth sees potential for key technical advancements in Bitcoin privacy — especially “Silent Payments,” developed by Ruben Somsen and Josie Baker — as having potential to move the needle on Bitcoin Privacy.
We dive into these developments and other key privacy technologies for Bitcoin in this episode, as well reviewing the regulatory and cultural hurdles faced by developers and users alike.
TIMESTAMPS:
🍰 01:15 The origins of Cake Wallet and early use for Monero before Bitcoin
⛏️ 07:22 How Monero's RandomX algorithm defends against ASIC-fueled centralization
🛡️ 15:15 The importance of default privacy and fungibility for blockchains
🕰️ 32:10 The early days of Bitcoin privacy: CoinJoin, Samurai, and Wasabi
🕵️ 39:47 Exploring the limitations of stealth addresses and BIP47
🤫 45:54 Silent Payments and friction with “handshake” transactions
🛠️ 55:00 Overcoming developer hurdles with Silent Payments
🪙 1:05:33 Managing UTXOs and the necessity of intuitive Coin Control
⛓️ 1:16:40 Evaluating Layer 2 privacy, covenants, and custody trade-offs
🔍 1:26:40 The core tension between supply auditability and privacy blinding
⚖️ 1:32:07 The chilling effect of the Samurai Wallet and Tornado Cash indictments
This interview is brought to you by:
LayerTwo Labs — developing research, software, and technologies for scaling Bitcoin via the integration of Drivechains (BIP 300/301)
Hashi on Sui Network — a primitive for executing Bitcoin DeFi transactions, without having to trust a federated bridge or other centralized entity
BitBox — an open-source Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with smooth UX and no compromises on security. Check out Bitbox [dot] swiss and use code BITCOINRAILS to get a discount
24 Sept 2026
PIPEs, Witness Encryption & the Future of Privacy on Bitcoin | MISHA & CLARA
Isabel Foxen Duke sits down with [[alloc] init] co-founder Misha Komarov and Head of Protocol Research Clara Shikhelman to examine PIPEs, a cryptographic framework that utilizes witness encryption—a primitive long dismissed as purely theoretical—to unlock advanced Bitcoin programming without a soft fork.
Breaking away from consensus bottlenecks, PIPEs aims to emulate native Bitcoin covenants and enable fully trustless, pessimistic single-transaction proofs. The episode unpacks the technical evolution from functional encryption to witness encryption in PIPEs v2, detailing how executing a specific computation correctly can cryptographically unlock a signature.
Although the underlying cryptographic assumptions remain experimental and unhardened, Komarov and Shikhelman believe PIPEs could potentially render optimistic bridges obsolete.
This episode of Bitcoin Rails is brought to you by:
LayerTwo Labs — developing research, software, and technologies for scaling Bitcoin via the integration of Drivechains (BIP 300/301)
Hashi on Sui Network — a primitive for executing Bitcoin DeFi transactions, without having to trust a federated bridge or other centralized entity
BitBox — an open-source Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with smooth UX and no compromises on security. Check out Bitbox [dot] swiss and use code BITCOINRAILS to get a discount
TIMESTAMPS:
🎙️ 01:42 Tying PIPEs to the mission at [[alloc] init]
🔓 08:31 Defining witness encryption and conditional decryption
🛠️ 23:59 Shifting from functional encryption (PIPEs v1) to witness encryption
📜 26:17 Outlining pre-covenants vs. post-covenants on Bitcoin
🏎️ 39:37 Why PIPEs v2 is far from the end of the road
🌐 56:57 Building meta-protocols and avoiding external sequencer risks
👀 1:05:00 Implementing optional compliant privacy via viewing keys
⚡ 1:15:33 Comparing PIPEs to BitVM and rendering BIPs obsolete
🎲 1:23:07 Evaluating the min-rank hardness assumption
27 Aug 2026
Bitcoin's Leading Post-Quantum Signature Proposal | CONDUITION
The first fully specified post-quantum signature scheme for Bitcoin has been proposed to the Bitcoin mailing list.
The proposal introduces a full specification for “SHRINCS,” a hash-based signature scheme initially conceived by Jonas Nick and Mikhail Kudinov of Blockstream Research — with specification details added by new co-authors Conduition, Remix7531 and BIP 360 co-author Ethan Heilman.
Today, I’m honored to share a full whiteboard explanation of the scheme by its co-author Conduition, as well as thorough discussion of the scheme’s key tradeoffs when compared to Bitcoin’s existing elliptic-curve signatures and competing post-quantum alternatives.
In more detail, this interview includes:
— A full whiteboard walkthrough of the scheme’s key components and its relationship to the NIST-standardized scheme SPHINCS+
— SHRINCs’ introduction of a compact stateful path - yes, I said stateful 🌶️
— Whiteboard explanations of all relevant cryptographic subschemes, including FORS, WOTS+C, and XMSS
— Thorough discussion of the scheme’s tradeoffs and implications for Bitcoin’s existing functionality
If you have a vested interest in understanding what may be the future signature scheme protecting Bitcoin transactions in a post-quantum world, this episode is a must-watch.
WARNING: this episode is fairly technical — don't beat yourself up if you don't catch everything, or need to watch it a few times to grok the details.
This episode of Bitcoin Rails is brought to you by:
LayerTwo Labs @LayerTwoLabs — developing research, software, and technologies for scaling Bitcoin via the integration of Drivechains (BIP 300/301)
Hashi on @SuiNetwork — a primitive for executing Bitcoin DeFi transactions, without having to trust a federated bridge or other centralized entity
BitBox @BitBoxSwiss — an open-source Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with smooth UX and no compromises on security. Check out Bitbox [dot] swiss and use code BITCOINRAILS to get a discount
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