Cracking a Bitcoin Wallet

For this game, brute-forcing a bitcoin wallet means finding the seed words and a passphrase, in this case, arranging them in the right order and using the resulting backup as a way to recover the wallet’s funds. There are many ways to achieve this and general knowledge about bitcoin wallets, script types, derivation paths, checksums, passphrases and BIP-39 seed words will be helpful. Each partner will be sharing their own seed word and the passphrase to the public in random order for anyone to attempt to guess the wallet backup. As more words are revealed, brute-forcing gets easier, so time is ticking as people from around the world compete to crack the wallet.

Without Anyone’s Permission

Shadowy super coders and sociopathic sat stacking anons from all over the Internet are welcome. From Guatemala to New York, Seoul or Dakar, anyone can participate without permission. This is bitcoin! Participants are welcome to join and brute-force a passphrase-protected 12-word seed backup with 3,454,811 sats on it (0.03454811 BTC). Participants from bitcoin communities can share tips, scripts and educational content to achieve this individually or as a group. There is only one rule for participants joining from all around the world: first come, first served. Crack the wallet, earn millions of sats; or more accurately, take what’s now rightfully yours before others do! Anybody is also welcome to send more sats to the bounty address as the game unfolds.

How Hunting Sats Works

• A passphrase-protected 12-word (BIP39) bitcoin wallet was created
• One bitcoin address was generated and 3,454,811 sats have been sent to it (bc1q7kw2uepv6hfffhhxx2vplkkpcwsslcw9hsupc6)
• Each word from the wallet backup, including mnemonic seed words and a passphrase, were randomly distributed to the 12 Hunting Sats partners
• The Wasabi Wallet Twitter account will announce the start of Hunting Sats on January 23rd, 2023
• Each partner will randomly reveal their secret word on Twitter within a full week of the start using #HuntingSats.
• As each word is shared by partners, participants will attempt to brute force the seed backup and ultimately claim the sats.
• If no one successfully sweeps the wallet within a week, hints will be shared accordingly.

Visit HuntingSats.com

For all the general information regarding the contest, including updates about the words that have been revealed to the public.

Official Partners

There are 12 partner projects and companies who each have been trusted to share a random word from the wallet backup. All partners have bitcoin-only products and care deeply about security, privacy and Bitcoin education.

BTCPay – A self-hosted, open-source bitcoin payment processor. It’s secure, private, censorship-resistant and free.

Trezor – A hardware wallet providing advanced security for handling bitcoin.

Cryptosteel – The mother of all backups. A fireproof, shockproof and waterproof offline tool that you own to backup your bitcoin and passwords.

Blockstream – The global leader in bitcoin and timechain technology. They make financial markets more efficient by reducing reliance on trust.

Bull Bitcoin – World’s best non-custodial Bitcoin company. Buy, sell and pay bills with Bitcoin. Our Mission: Destroy Fiat.

Hodl Hodl – P2P bitcoin trading & lending platform that doesn’t hold funds.

Bitcoin Reserve – Easiest way to unlock the professional OTC buying and selling experience, without all of the hassle and high-trade minimums of traditional brokerage desks.

Coinkite – A leader in security and hardware manufacturer. Maker of some of the most iconic Bitcoin products, such as OPENDIME, COLDCARD, BLOCKCLOCK and more.

Swan Bitcoin – On a mission to inspire and educate 10 million new Bitcoiners. Start buying Bitcoin in 10 minutes or less. Services for HNWI, companies and financial advisors.

BTCTKVR – The home of insightful Bitcoin articles, podcasts, videos & music.

mempool.space – Explore the full bitcoin ecosystem and be your own explorer with The Mempool Open Source Project.

Wizardsardine – A team of bitcoiners with a passion for security. Our mission is to make bitcoiners sleep better at night. We focus on safety: preventing both theft and loss.

“Entropy is still a very alien concept for most people. When your money is at stake, you should spend some time to understand how it impacts security. Breaking a wallet without any info? No. Breaking a wallet when you find 6 of the words? Well, maybe. How many will the cracker need? 7? 8? Let’s see.” – Kevin Loaec, Co-Founder & CEO at Wizardsardine

“Gamification is a good way to educate users and that is what Hunting Sats is all about. On the one hand, it shows how brute force becomes more achievable if users reveal part of their seed – for example, if they expose it to cloud storage or split their recovery seed into parts. On the other hand, when users work responsibly with their seed and keep their private key in dedicated cold storage, the risk of cracking the wallet is practically zero. We’re excited to watch how the game will play out and looking forward to further cooperating with Wasabi Wallet.” – Jiří Kroulík, PR Manager at Trezor

“Brute-forcing Bitcoin wallet by playing around the seed phrase sounds like a fun game, but in fact, it is all about educating us on the delicate security that our private keys need to be attributed with. Understanding these basic concepts is one of the first steps towards self-sovereignty and self-custody. We are happy to be part of this initiative and cooperate with companies that share our values.” – Hodl Hodl

“Hands-on learning through fun games like Hunting Sats is a fantastic way for users to learn about seed phrase security and other benefits of self-custody. At Coinkite, we have been creating Bitcoin security & fun devices for over a decade. Today, we are excited to support Hunting Sats, a fun and engaging way to educate and for freedom-loving people.” – NVK, Co-Founder & CEO of Coinkite

“For years, we’ve made a constant effort to spread the word and educate about the need for financial self-sovereignty and best security practices for private key protection. Entering 2023, we’re happy to begin celebrating our tenth anniversary by joining this exciting event organized by Wasabi. Best of luck to all the contestants – may the hackiest hacker win!” – Team Cryptosteel

“As bitcoiners, we wanted to organize a fun game to start 2023 on a high note with projects and companies we respect and use every day. Bitcoin security and privacy are essential and we hope Hunting Sats can bring together bitcoiners who care about these principles.” – Thibaud Marechal, Contributor at Wasabi Wallet

If you have additional questions, please reach out to the Hunting Sats organizers on Twitter by DMs to @thibm_ or via email to [email protected]. Don’t forget to follow @wasabiwallet and all the partners on Twitter for the latest announcements and join the contest with #HuntingSats.

About Wasabi Wallet

Reclaim your privacy with Wasabi Wallet, a free and open-source bitcoin wallet with built-in coinjoins. Coinjoins are collaborative bitcoin transactions to enable cash-like privacy features for bitcoin in the era of digital surveillance. Download, verify and try Wasabi Wallet here.

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Bitcoin is a key factor in the investment strategies of many institutional and retail investors. Mass awareness of Bitcoin has largely arrived, as the percentage of people who are at least familiar with the idea of Bitcoin is high. However, there are gulfs between those with awareness of Bitcoin, those who own the cryptocurrency and those who use it as the currency it was designed to function as.

Considering the impressive functionality Bitcoin already possesses and the historic highs its value has hit, it can be startling to remember that mass adoption is still underway and will represent massive growth in value and applications.

As is the case with any emerging technology, those who immerse themselves in the landscape prior to mainstream adoption put themselves in a powerful position as cryptocurrency becomes more entrenched in the financial world. Let’s take a look at the path of adoption that Bitcoin is on, the tools that can make Bitcoin even better and what the implications of a hyperbitcoinized world could be.

Degrees of adoption

According to a report from 2022, around forty million Americans have either traded crypto or have expressed interest in doing so. Another report from one year earlier stated that more than a quarter of Americans own bitcoin.

While these numbers are impressive, they don’t refer to a clearly-defined standard of what adoption truly means. For example, those who buy bitcoin simply to hold as an investment strategy are certainly Bitcoin users, but they can’t be said to have embraced the full potential of Bitcoin as the world’s most promising system for value transfer and storage.

As such, the percentage of users who have adopted Bitcoin in a significant way—making it central to both their saving and spending needs—is far lower than the numbers cited above. The fact that so few people are using Bitcoin to its fullest potential is another reason to feel optimistic about the future of Bitcoin adoption, as the room for growth is immense.

Bitcoin as more than an investment strategy

Compared to many other assets, Bitcoin adoption happens on a sliding scale rather than in a binary fashion. For example, when personal computers gained popularity and affordability, computer adoption could be easily measured by whether one had a computer. When someone purchased a computer, they could be said to have fully adopted computer usage.

Bitcoin adoption, however, tends to occur in waves that increase in frequency and size. A user may experiment with trading for $20 worth of bitcoin, and then may begin exchanging more and more of their fiat currency for bitcoin when they become more comfortable and optimistic in the network’s infrastructure and the third-party tools that facilitate its use.

Particularly in the developing world, Bitcoin can empower a staggering number of people who currently do not have access to traditional banking. Across the world, decentralized finance is a pathway towards regaining the privacy that has been eroded by over-intrusive tech giants.

Bitcoin can help usher in a new area of financial liberation by helping users sidestep the issues associated with the traditional online payment ecosystem, including high fees, red tape, long wait times and a lack of control over one’s funds.

Comfort and confidence

One sign that some experts associate with widespread adoption is the ability to utilize cryptocurrencies without a full technical understanding of how they work. This point may seem counterintuitive since users with a high degree of knowledge about Bitcoin are good for the development of the landscape, too.

The reality, however, is that to become attractive to a more substantive portion of the population, Bitcoin needs to be accessible to those without extensive knowledge of the ins and outs of blockchains, peer-to-peer networks or even financial systems.

This can be compared to how smartphone adoption did not rely on users understanding the infrastructure and underlying technology that made these devices possible. It was smartphone usability that propelled these devices into each of our pockets, not a sense of their potential or an abstract belief in what they represented. Tools that help make Bitcoin streamlined and intuitive for users of all backgrounds will have a key role to play on the path toward full-on adoption.

Promising factors regarding bitcoin’s global adoption

Bitcoin is the best hard money asset

Bitcoin is a quickly evolving ecosystem. Developments and trends in the larger cryptocurrency space can be difficult to anticipate; few could have predicted the dramatic rise in popularity of NFTs, for instance, or the surge in awareness and value attributed to memecoins. In El Salvador, Bitcoin has established itself as the country’s legal tender—a degree of adoption that would have been unthinkable a few short years ago.

However, Bitcoin’s growing global adoption is unsurprising, when one keeps in mind that Bitcoin is the most solid and technologically-advanced form of hard money that exists. Though developments, value swings and news stories associated with Bitcoin can be hard to predict, its future is fixed and predictable.

Bitcoin has no elasticity, which means the supply of Bitcoin is not and never will be affected by changes in price. After all, only 21 million Bitcoin will ever be produced. In times of global instability and rapid inflation, Bitcoin’s status as hard money is made even more attractive by how it exists entirely in the digital world, making storage and security solutions ideal.

Bitcoin is always improving

While Bitcoin is often thought of as enabling anonymous transactions, it isn’t fully private by nature. Transactions and address balances are visible on the blockchain to anyone interested in viewing them. While Bitcoin addresses could be thought of as anonymous because they don’t themselves directly link to users’ identity, these addresses can be linked to users indirectly through personal information collected by merchants.

Third-party tools that bolster Bitcoin’s privacy and security represent important developments aiding adoption. coinjoin methods are one way Bitcoin’s privacy can be tightened up. With coinjoin, separation is created between each bitcoin’s past, present and future by pooling and mixing bitcoins to obscure their provenance. Wasabi offers an open-source and easy-to-use Bitcoin wallet that lets users easily utilize customizable coinjoin features.

Factors inhibiting Bitcoin adoption

Government fear and cynicism

Some of the aspects of Bitcoin that make it a powerful and empowering tool are the same aspects that make governments wary of it. Bitcoin cannot be readily regulated and it has the potential to weaken the ability of governments to create monetary policy and influence the economy.

Some forward-thinking governments have utilized Bitcoin to improve circumstances for both the country and its citizens. In particular, 2022 has seen Ukraine benefit enormously by embracing Bitcoin during their hardships. The government has accepted donations and other aid in Bitcoin and citizens have used it to facilitate cross-border transfers, as a hedge against inflation and to mitigate the effects of an unstable national currency.

For the most part, major countries including the United States and China have taken consistent steps to restrict and regulate the use of Bitcoin, as its decentralization poses a risk to their economic control over individuals.

Bitcoin-resistant governments often point to the link between Bitcoin and crime as being at the root of their skepticism. However, many Bitcoin and finance experts have pointed out that the link between Bitcoin and cybercrime is largely overblown.

In 2020, a report from Chainalysis stated that the percentage of cryptocurrency transactions linked to criminal use has been decreasing overall to around a third of one percent of all cryptocurrency transactions today. Meanwhile, the UN estimates that between two and five percent of global GDP can be linked to crime and money laundering—a far higher rate. For this reason, government hand-wringing about Bitcoin’s facilitation of illicit activities can be read as ill-informed at best and deliberately misleading at worst.

In an investigation of how government bodies identify black market transactions, the Wasabi team discovered that governments view anything that was purchased in a “non-compliant” way as a black market transaction, regardless of what was purchased. However, common practices among blockchain analysis firms recognize that black market transactions require more stringent classification.

Technological barriers to entry

There’s an unfortunate trade-off that often happens for new users of Bitcoin wherein monetary sovereignty is traded away in exchange for ease of use. Newcomers to the Bitcoin landscape are often looking for the path of least resistance. These all too often come in the form of heavily-marketed centralized exchanges that can be more closely aligned philosophically with big banks than they are with the modern-day cypherpunk vision.

Users with knowledge of blockchain technology tend to be aware of how to keep their Bitcoin secure, and of the importance of maintaining ownership over their private keys. On the other hand, users who make use of and trust these popular centralized exchanges for storing their bitcoin sacrifice much of the decentralized freedom that Bitcoin represents.

Adoption of Bitcoin in the future can be greatly aided by tools that provide users with a smooth and streamlined experience without leading to increased centralization. Non-custodial wallets like Wasabi that don’t make users give up their private keys are an important development, as they help Bitcoin adoption grow while protecting Bitcoin users from the relentless creep of centralization and regulation.

Wasabi Wallet’s Role in Bitcoin’s Growing Adoption

Beyond the financial benefits of pivoting to Bitcoin, the philosophical implications of a global population that’s vested in increased agency online is a reason to be optimistic for the future. Bitcoin is an inherently idealistic proposition—a decentralized currency that puts users in control of their funds and, by extension, their privacy.

A belief in Bitcoin’s widespread global adoption needs to be rooted in the realities it faces, particularly in terms of security and privacy. After all, Bitcoin’s adoption will only be a success if it retains its ability to be a crypto-anarchist-minded tool that protects users’ secure financial transactions.

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Relai is a Swiss Bitcoin Exchange that currently uses IBANs to allow users to acquire bitcoins. This is still not a completely private way to purchase bitcoins, but some users like this option because they do not have to show any type of identification documentation or give the exact details of their location. This form of KYC is less intrusive, but it is still revealing of real information because IBAN transactions contain your real life name and address details.

Beyond that, Relai is a quickly evolving company that just now released the 2.0 version of their app and have become their own broker to process bitcoin purchases for their clients. Congratulations to everyone at Relai for this achievement!

Before the 2.0 release, there had been rumours about a potential party appearing in the middle of Zurich, organized by the CEO of Relai, Julian. My dear friend Stephanie, aka @proofofsteph on twitter told me about this and it stuck in my head until one of my last visits to Prague in November when she confirmed that it was really happening. It was certainly short notice since, just a few days earlier, not even the official Relai Twitter account tweeted anything about it while I was rushing around to secure a ticket and accommodation for my stay.

My trip over to Zurich was rather uneventful.I encountered zero harassment from border guard agencies and nobody asked for any documentation. For Bitcoiners, the free movement of people and capital is of the utmost importance and it seems that sometimes this is possible across the Swiss border

It feels really great to be able to meet bitcoiners from around the world and this party was one great opportunity to do so.

The Relai party was held at Relai’s office in the beautiful city of Zurich, Switzerland. In fact, it’s exactly on top of the building where The House of Satoshi is located. It is a cosy little social space where people can sit down, enjoy a locally made beer or wine (or was it some sort of champagne or mead?) The space was created to educate people about bitcoin, with some hints of shitcoin here and there. Clearly, Bitcoin is the dominant setting and theme of the place.

From the moment you step in, everything about the space gives off the right Bitcoin vibes. That’s also how the party went.

I don’t want to accidentally out any bitcoiner who was at the party but everyone from the Relai Team were present and were making sure everyone had a great time. Endless Beer, pizzas and snacks were available putting everyone in a good mood.

Among the mingling bitcoiners, some were notable figures, like the sudden and short appearance of the LocalBitcoins.com founder who I completely managed to miss.

Steph aka @proofofsteph was wearing a tactfully chosen orange striped dress. If there were a Ms Party elected, it would definitely have been her..Maxim Orlovksy and Olga Ukolova also made an appearance at the event. Some local bitcoiners also came around whose names I am unable to remember, (I’m so sorry.)

A bitcoiner called Kenobi also came around just to meet cool bitcoiners. He was willing to sacrifice a good night’s sleep to spend the whole night with the cool kids. Hopefully, his ride back home on the train wasn’t too exhausting.

The Goon passed out copies of the Bitcoin Day newspaper, straight from El Salvador’s September edition on the day the Bitcoin law came into effect. Now that is some serious swag he was handing out like candy. People from Shift Crypto, the creators of the BitBox hardware wallet, were also around.

This party was one blast of a meetup that every bitcoiner can only wish to attend. Those who missed it will likely have to wait weeks or months until the next international meetup where more bitcoiners will be present from all around the world.

Every chance at organizing bitcoiners in one location in real life is rare. Don’t let borders or regulations stand in your way to meet those who matter the most in this revolution. Bitcoin truly deserves our participation.

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Open source means that the programming, or source code, is open to everyone and anyone can see it.  Additionally, anybody can contribute to the development of the code and use the code in any way they see fit. It’s typically developed by people committing their free time to collectively writing, testing and updating the code. Most open-source projects are decentralized in that developers collectively agree on what or what not to merge into their core programming. This means that consensus has to be reached for progress to be made. As expected, the process can be painfully slow and achieving consensus is often next to impossible. A good example of this are all of the major changes that have happened with Bitcoin over its lifetime. For each, the process of achieving consensus took months of debate before the process of reaching consensus even began. In fact, it’s not uncommon for this to take years to go from conception to completion.

zkSNACKs is centralized when it comes to approving the source code. There are only 2 developers with permission to merge any changes. In an ecosystem where centralization is treated as a dirty word, the reasoning for this makes sense. Anybody can still contribute to the development, testing and checking of the code; but by limiting the final approval process to just two developers, it removes the lengthy process of reaching consensus. This, of course, vastly improves the speed with which changes can be implemented while maintaining all of the beneficial attributes of an open-source project.

zkSNACKs is a private company. Like most private companies, it generates revenue in an attempt to make a profit. But Wasabi Wallet is a free software…so how does zkSNACKs generate revenue from a product that is completely free? Most companies working on open-source software go into the business of consulting. But once again, zkSNACKs does not do this. Instead, it draws a marginal fee for operating the server that is coordinating the CoinJoin rounds. This means that the software is free to download. The wallet is free to use, but making your Bitcoin private through CoinJoin costs a marginal fee that is hardly noticeable to the user [0.003% of the amount times the anonymity set].

What is significant about this is that the money going to the company increases the privacy guarantees of all users. Because there is a small fee on every CoinJoin input, it is a verifiable cost that must be paid. In doing this, the honest user with one input (for themself) has a negligible fee. But for a malicious user attempting a Sybil attack (one entity simultaneously impersonating multiple users), the cumulative fee becomes substantial.

The way the company spends its revenue aligns much more with a charity than a for-profit business. The vast majority of the company’s revenue pays the salary for everyone working at the company. What are these people doing? Well, most of them are developers, some of them work on the marketing/public relations (myself included), some of them handle the support, and some of them are designing the UI. This means that instead of relying solely on the charitable contributions of time and skills to the development of its software, the company is providing these people with the means to spend all of their time focusing on the development and innovation of Wasabi Wallet.

Additionally, the money is also spent to fund bounties for the contribution games. Producing an open-source software is great, but you’re essentially competing against people’s full time jobs to get the attention from the contributors to focus on its development. Of course, there’s no competition when you’re not getting paid. As a hobby, there are intrinsic benefits to working on the project, but at the end of the day everyone has to pay their bills. By funding contribution games, the development of Wasabi Wallet can compete for your time, even against your regular job. It’s the equivalent of gig work for musicians. If you’re really good at contributing, the potential exists for gig work to become full time work (by being hired by the company, zkSNACKs). So the fact that zkSNACKs is being paid directly by Wasabi Wallet’s users whereas many other companies are paid through consulting services is a bonus since the users are financially contributing to making the software better.

Aside from all the contributions Wasabi Wallet has made to the Bitcoin ecosystem by enabling users to easily gain privacy, the company sponsoring the development of Wasabi Wallet is quietly making an equally significant impact on the way open source software is being developed. One can’t help but point out the irony behind what is essentially a privacy wallet developed through multiple contributions being supported by a company sponsoring the contributorily developed wallet which is, itself, making a profound contribution to the way open-source software is being developed.

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Bitcoin, as it stands, is very much traceable and censorable. In fact, Bitcoin without sufficient privacy protections provides perfect permanent records of your entire financial life; with sufficient analytics every transaction past and future will be on display for all to observe. This information allows surveillance the likes of which a totalitarian state could only dream. Nevermind governments, you wouldn’t walk into a nightclub and have your savings in large bills popping out of your pockets on display for all to see. The internet is one giant nightclub full of vicious criminals hanging out over in the corner, scanning the room and exchanging tips on how to ruin your day.

Wasabi has pioneered new techniques to protect Bitcoin anonymity. Instead of rubbing your name off of a coin, what if you wrote many thousands of names onto it?

Imagine you have a coin with your name on it. You meet up with fifty people at a certain time and everyone puts their coins into a hopper in the middle of the room. The original fifty coins then get melted down, and out of the coinjoin machine come fifty new coins that each have all fifty names on them! Now your name is on fifty coins and you have fifty names on your coin.  Repeated “coinjoins” only make someone watching more confused as more and more names get added to your coin.

If most Bitcoin has many names on it, the tracking done by governments, corporations and nefarious actors will be greatly hindered.

The upcoming Wasabi Wallet release is set to significantly improve the privacy of the entire space by making these operations seamless enough that access to coinjoin technology is accessible to all.

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The event focuses on hacking and societal change that spreads awareness on freedom; it also educates visitors on topics they might have never encountered. From darknet stories to Bitcoin lightning node management, you will find everything at The Hacker’s Congress.

Of course, if you prefer to just meet people, you are at the best place since it has the most diverse crowd from all walks of life and educational backgrounds come to Hacker’s Congress.

It’s one of the biggest opportunities of the year to meet new people and network in the bitcoin space as more and more bitcoiners gain interest in attending the event. The amazing dinners and great time you can have is entirely priceless in the company of some of the best people within our ecosystem. It is usually a very flexible event in that, it is what you make out of it.

After my first attendance at Hacker’s Congress Paralelní Polis in Prague, I felt my views changed entirely on freedom and what freedom-seeking individuals can achieve together.

Since I couldn’t attend the Congress in person in 2020, I was looking for an excuse to attend this year’s conference and it couldn’t have turned out better.

Hacker’s Congress Paralelní Polis

Every year is a brand new slate for Hacker’s Congress: a new theme, new topics and current issues that affect society are often hot topics.

This year, it was Chaos. The chaoticism of today’s current world and how it affects everything from travel, politics, bitcoin and culture. Though this year’s event was not especially content-heavy, it was convenient for picking your interests.

Some of this year’s presentations were outstanding in content, for example, Mario Havel’s presentation on how he made a physical lightning wallet using LNBits, giving congress attendees access to instant payments on the venue. I personally never came across a physical Lightning Wallet that works like debit/credit cards and I was amazed how cool it is. Anyone has the opportunity to hack the physical wallet and attach their own LNBits payment details onto it to make payments. In this way, there’s no need to rely on Paralelni Polis’ custodial lightning service.

Frank Braun and Smuggler were also the highlights of the congress. Their presentations always show you something you haven’t thought of before. However, the main attraction for a bitcoiner like myself is the possibility of meeting other like-minded individuals.

It is an unwritten rule of bitcoin’s social organization, that if you want to take your connections to the next level, you must meet your peers in the flesh. Online interactions are one thing and anyone can shitpost on Twitter, but have you ever met someone? Have you ever sat down in a restaurant, ate a steak together and had conversations about funny things that happened in life? It is an experience everyone must have because bitcoiners are some of the most vivid and intelligent beings on this planet worthy of your company.

I started organizing the Annual Bitcoin Maxi Dinner in Prague, a day before the Congress kicks off, and it has now become a tradition. Initially, this dinner was an impromptu meetup that outgrew itself and has become an annual event. Great people who matter in the Bitcoin space come to indulge in good food and good company for a lengthy night. This year, the meetup was amazingly large and continues to grow. The usual dinners organized spontaneously during the congress by other bitcoiners are also highly recommended. If you are unsure of how to attend these dinners, just ask your fellow peers whether or not they have plans to go eat out later during the day or night. Don’t be afraid to stop large groups moving outside to ask whether they are heading to a pub or a restaurant.

The Balance on Privacy

So, you can get to meet bitcoiners in the flesh, but isn’t this also a privacy conference?

It certainly is!

Some people often hide their identities at these events, wary of cameras and surveillance. I, myself, wear a mask constantly that hides my traits, this is what privacy is about.

I do not want cameras taking pictures of me and I exercise my right to be selective about who I reveal my real identity to. This “information” is exclusive, not everyone is granted a right to violate my privacy in such ways. Without masks we all violate each other’s privacy, therefore why should one not wear a mask?

Everyone should have the choice of whom to selectively reveal their identity to. When I attend dinners, I usually only go with groups who I trust or feel comfortable with going, down to the personal level. It is a super intimate experience, forming connections with others that will likely last a lifetime if treated right.

Should you Attend?

Bitcoin might have an ever-changing price, but the connections you make while participating in its revolution is priceless. Revealing your identity partially to make others more comfortable around you and showing them a level of trust you put into their hands to handle is powerful.

From one bitcoiner to another, would I recommend the yearly attendance of Hacker’s Congress Paralelní Polis? Yes, definitely! I can’t shill this event enough. But what I will tell everyone is that you should drop whatever you are doing in the first week of October and attend, whatever the cost may be. As always, it is a real pleasure to meet real bitcoiners who have real skin in the game and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I hope to see the dear reader there one day as well!

If you want to find out more about Hacker’s Congress or about Paralelní Polis, check out https://paralelnipolis.cz

This is a guest post by Karo Zagorus. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Wasabi Wallet or zkSNACKs Ltd.

Bio: Karo Zagorus is a Bitcoin Maximalist, he is the author of the book “Bitcoin and the Trust Problem” (to be released), he actively contributes cultural content for Bitcoin Magazine and Citadel 21. You can find out more about him at http://btcdragonlord.com or find him on Twitter at @btcdragonlord

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The answer to this question has been revealed at the unveiling of the Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Budapest, Hungary where a life-sized bronze bust of Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto has been erected.

Though there have been countless speculations regarding Satoshi’s identity since the October 31st publication of the Bitcoin white paper almost 13 years ago and the subsequent creation of Bitcoin’s Genesis Block, no one has come close to revealing who Bitcoin’s creator is.

The concept, which was the work of Hungarian sculptors Réka Gergely and Tamás Gilly portrays Satoshi as a hooded figure whose facial features are obscured by a bronze and aluminum alloy heavily polished to reflect the faces of anyone who comes close enough, emphasizing Nakamoto’s unknown identity.

Regardless of Satoshi’s true identity, András Győrfi, the event’s co-founder and Bitcoin advocate believes that a new chapter in the history of the internet was opened with Nakamoto’s invention of digital currency with blockchain technology being a significant contribution to the world.

Here’s what he had to say about today’s event:

On creating a Satoshi Nakamoto statue

I truly believe as a journalist working in this field that Bitcoin, and especially, the blockchain has a huge significance, and we’re only scratching the surface in what Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and especially the blockchain can do in all sorts of fields. I’ve mentioned art, logistics, finance and the list goes on and on, science and beyond. So Bitcoin itself, yes, extremely important. Cryptocurrencies, yes, very important. It’s going to be huge. Trillions of dollars, I believe. But the blockchain is our main focus, the blockchain as a general use technology for various fields.

This is why he deserves a statute.

On choosing the location,  Graphisoft Park

Graphisoft was the first company in the world in the 1980s to use computers for architectural design. It was a huge, huge thing. Even Steve jobs invested in them. He has a statue, not far from here. Mr Gábor Bojár, the founder of Graphisoft, built these office buildings and this [campus] as a startup hub. So this is a cradle for innovation. It’s not only beautiful. It’s very inspiring. A lot of young people, a lot of great ideas, so this is perfect. It wasn’t easy to find a location, but we found this and they welcomed us with open arms and we truly believe that this is the perfect location, not only because of the beauty of this place, but what it represents.

Placing the Statue close to Steve Jobs’ Sculpture

Both of them are idols of the global IT industry; very different fields, probably very different personalities, different goals, but they’re both idols. They both fit into a hand full of icons of the tech industry with Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and the list goes on.

On Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity

It doesn’t matter. His gender, his race, his age, his nationality. It doesn’t matter. We are all Satoshi.

On Wasabi Wallet

I believe that the technology is advanced behind Wasabi and I think Wasabi is one of those companies of the crypto industry that are trying to push the envelope…

Wasabi represents the attitude that every crypto company should have, that we don’t want to make millions of dollars in two weeks, we want to create a product that advances the technology.

The biggest takeaway from today’s Satoshi Nakamoto Reveal

You never know where your ideas are gonna take you and what your ideas can grow into. The best example is the statute itself. As I said, I was sitting there and on a rainy afternoon I had this idea and in my first [and even] my second thought was, ah, okay, who cares? But then I told one of my colleagues, then another colleague, then I called one of the sponsors and another one. And everybody, everybody threw in a great idea. For example, Gabriela Debrecen from Mr Coin, the first Hungarian cryptocurrency exchange. She told me that Satoshi has to wear a hoodie. I wanted those old fashion hats from the 1920s and to put a Bitcoin logo on the edge of the, or the rim at the hat, Gabriela told me, “that’s crazy!”

If you have an idea, then, go for it. Not all ideas are going to work out. Of course, I failed in a lot of things, but sometimes, you’re going to succeed.

Thank you András Győrfi for taking our interview and thank you for making the first state of Satoshi Nakamoto happen.

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On May 22, 2010, Bitcoin was used for the first documented real-world transaction. The day now referred to as “Pizza Day” has become a milestone in Bitcoin’s history, not only because of the significance of such a breakthrough for Bitcoin’s use as a medium of exchange, but also because of the transaction’s current value. The man behind the famous transaction spent 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas and a coke, which is now worth millions of dollars.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of publications have been written about the price and how much the two pizzas are worth today. But how many articles address the privacy concerns that this transaction raises?

Satoshi Nakamoto said in a Bitcointalk thread:

“The possibility to be anonymous or pseudonymous relies on you not revealing any identifying information about yourself in connection with the bitcoin addresses you use. If you post your bitcoin address on the web, then you’re associating that address and any transactions with it with the name you posted under. If you posted under a handle that you haven’t associated with your real identity, then you’re still pseudonymous. For greater privacy, it’s best to use bitcoin addresses only once.”

With This quote in mind, let’s take a look at the historic pizza day transaction that kicked off Bitcoin’s decade-long meteoric rise, and all the privacy concerns that were compromised on that day.

A Bitcointalk user and his pseudonym

On May 18, 2010, a user under the pseudonym “Lászlo ” started a “Pizza for Bitcoins?” message asking for “a couple of pizzas.” In this message, Lászlo shared his Bitcoin address as well as the physical address where the pizzas should be sent in a text.

“I didn’t know much about privacy and how it worked back then and I didn’t really think it was important to worry about it since it wasn’t a very big deal that time.”
~ Lászlo

On May 22nd, 2010, Lászlo sent another message, confirming that the 10,000 Bitcoin transaction had been completed and that he had received the two pizzas. Shortly after that, he posted a URL to a website with pictures of the pizzas.

How much sensitive public data has been given up to this point? There are four infractions to work with when it comes to tracking the consumer as well as the transaction Lászlo was involved in, and we will discuss these below.

The compromised identity of a forum user

Assume there is an entity that wants to track a single person. The first thing they would check is if this individual has shared any personal information on the platform. Trackers and hackers can see if the user has posted any addresses that are entirely their own. The first thing they will do is check whether the user has posted some identifying information on the website (in Laszlo’s case, it was that forum where history was made).

Is this even possible? How are they able to do this?

Yes, this is possible and sometimes, too easy. That is why we, Wasabi Wallet, work hard to raise awareness about the value of privacy and are invested in educating people about making smarter decisions about their privacy.

But what exactly was the issue in Lászlo’s pizza case? Why should users think about improving their privacy?

Well, the explanation is simple. He shared his bitcoin and physical address, the amount of Bitcoin used in the infamous transaction as well as photos of the pizza, after their successful delivery.

Users should never post their bitcoin address on the internet and they should never link it to their physical address. Obviously, no one could have predicted Bitcoin’s huge increase at that time, thus Lászlo could have ignored it as well.

His address has been used in many transactions in the future, and it helped allow the trackers to monitor not only the exact transaction, but also previous and future ones. As a consequence and with an unassuming step, Lászlo’s past, present and future transactions became as visible as an open book.

Trackers could quickly search for transactions involving the same amount around the time period because the blockchain is a transparent and immutable ledger. They could also find that the associated transaction relates to the amounts as well as any other information or addresses that were visible at first after a simple check in this open ledger.

Is it okay to reuse Bitcoin addresses?

The answer is: NO! DO NOT USE THE SAME BITCOIN ADDRESS!

But why? The point is straightforward: if an address is used several times, the same private key will be able to spend all of the coins. It is then very easy to locate all of the UTXOs (Unspent Transaction Outputs) associated with this particular address, and therefore to determine how many bitcoins the private key currently holds or previously held.

What about a Transaction of Change? Is that a good Idea?

The answer is: NO! IT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA!

Lászlo’s pizza transaction raises another privacy issue: by making a change output connected with the same input, trackers can keep records of more and more purchases by the user. It implies that the source of funds from a particular address can be monitored permanently. The detectors have not only discovered how much Bitcoin an individual has, but they can also monitor all of his future Bitcoin transactions.

Should round numbers be used in Bitcoin transactions?

The answer: DO NOT USE ROUND NUMBERS WHEN MAKING TRANSACTIONS!

When sending bitcoins, the destination address is typically given a round number. This is because the human brain follows trends which, for the most part, likes to think in terms of defined numbers since a number like “10,000” is far easier for our brains to grasp than “10,021.92583769.” This helps clarify that the non-round number output is the return to the sender.

Referring to Lászlo’s case, both of the outputs in the previously discussed Bitcoin Pizza transaction were round numbers.

Should a person’s address ever be made available to the public on the internet?

As if you haven’t been paying attention. The answer is: NO!

We’ve shown how multiple cyber attacks in recent decades have stripped away the feeling of security that any human being deserves, and we’re not only referring to Bitcoin-related privacy violations. Our recommendations and the backstory justifying them applies to every service or product that people purchase or use on the internet.

Cyber attacks occur at a rate of over 530 per second. Everybody will be a victim of a hack or data theft at some point in the future, and it should not be a Bitcoin related issue. Everyone uses the internet, banks, social media….etc. Attackers can easily access everything connected to the Internet. What is posted on the internet is open to watchful eyes.

So how can people feel secure in the holiest place of all, our home, if it is shared with the rest of the world?

What about sharing your geographic location?

The answer: Is this for real? If you value your privacy, DO NOT share your geographic location.

Also, when you send a Bitcoin transaction, you’re basically sending a message from your device to the Bitcoin network. Someone running a large number of Bitcoin nodes could be able to match some of your transactions to your IP address, monitoring your bitcoin balance and exact location.

On a desktop, this can be avoided reasonably easily by filtering all transactions through Tor – a free worldwide volunteer overlay network with thousands of relay nodes that protects a user’s location and also from anyone undertaking network surveillance or traffic analysis.

“Things have changed dramatically since Bitcoin is very valuable nowadays. Privacy is more important now than ever before.”  ~ Lászlo

What is the solution to all of these concerns?

First and foremost, be conscious of what you post online. If you’re openly sharing personal information or details, even the best and strongest technologies can only do so much to protect your data and rights. Second, there’s CoinJoin by Wasabi Wallet, the open-source non-custodial, privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet for Desktop, that implements trustless CoinJoin. It has Tor built in and all data seen between customer and server goes through it by default, so IP addresses are shielded and hidden; furthermore, the users’ privacy is protected.

By conjoining your bitcoin it is significantly more difficult for others to track your transactions on the blockchain. CoinJoin is an excellent service which combines multiple coins in a single, big transaction. This protects your money and gives you privacy. It maximizes the security and the privacy of your future by maintaining the transparency of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Wasabi also provides all of the usual security features, such as Hierarchical Deterministic wallets as well as address reuse prevention, moreover, coin control and labeling specifications. The wallet has a one-click partial full node integration and uses BIP-158 Client-side block filtering to access its own transaction history in a private manner. If a user already has a Bitcoin full node on a local or remote device, the IP address and port, or the Tor onion service, can be defined, and Wasabi will use it to verify and apply Bitcoin rules.

“Wasabi Wallet is my favorite non full node Bitcoin wallet. It uses modern methods to filter transactions and has a privacy first design. The built in CoinJoin functionality is probably the most interesting part. But even for users who are not interested in this feature it is a great wallet that encourages labeling the user’s coins and being aware of what inputs the user is spending.” ~ Lászlo

It also includes specialized cutting-edge features such as:

• Opt-in PayJoin
• Dust attack protections
• Custom change address
• Anti wallet fingerprinting
• Wasabi also has a complete and detailed documentation containing explanations on the architecture of the program,on its functionality and tutorials on how to use it.

The Wasabi Team is also working on Wasabi Wallet 2.0, a combination of user interface (UI), user experience (UX) and coinjoin (CJ) improvements.

On the CoinJoin front, the long awaited WabiSabi will also make its debut. It will facilitate faster, more cost-efficient collaborative transactions without waste, lay the foundation for payments within CoinJoin and open the door for combinations with other technologies.

All in all, even though no one will pay 10,000 BTC for two pizzas today, the privacy issue is a big concern that everybody should consider in the future.

One last piece of advice to help you keep your data private at all times: check the privacy settings on every platform that you use on a regular basis. Or if you ever want to make your Bitcoin more private, check out Wasabi Wallet and put it to use.

What sets us apart from other wallets? Why is Wasabi Wallet so important for privacy?

Because Wasabi Wallet safeguards YOU, your loved ones, and your associates. Because Wasabi Wallet will help you protect your Bitcoin.

What is the point of this, exactly?

The answer is that Wasabi Wallet is determined to reclaim your privacy.

No data. Just privacy.

Recommended reading on Bitcoin privacy:

• https://docs.wasabiwallet.io/
• https://en.bitcoin.it/Privacy
• https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/privacy.html

The post Pizza for Bitcoin? appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

In these 2.5 years, the same kind of transition has taken place. There have always been programmers since Wasabi Wallet is a software, but the owners handled everything. Now, there’s a marketing team, a UI team, a research team and code team aside from the owners. Interestingly, this city has even grown large enough to require superpowered crime fighters. Wasabi Wallet’s superhero team has recently been formed under the name: The Powerpuff Team, and despite not being nearly as cute or even being girls, the differences are not that vast.

Where Did This Name Come From?

Initially, it was easy to compare the team to the Powerpuff Girls since there were three interns and well, they fought bugs as the Powerpuff Girls fight criminals. They review all codes and fix all the bugs that appear since most of the (core) developers don’t have the time to review all the code. Their job is to maintain all of the incoming Pull Requests and check on the Issues that come in by the users or the developers, debugging them if it’s possible and develop new features.

However, more people have since joined and the aliases grew to accommodate each member:

• Balázs is Bubbles
• Adam P is Blossom
• Rafe is Bell
• Yahiheb is Bliss
• Nopara is Professor Utonium
• David is the Mayor of Townsville

Nopara73, aptly named Professor Utonium (the Professor), was an integral part of the selection process and continues to work closely with the team. He has also started to organize power programming meetings – sessions open to anyone who wants to learn more about fixing bugs and implementing new features.

Balázs, who is also referred to as Bubbles, is the scrummaster, or the moderator for the everyday meetings and assigns tasks to everyone. He reveals that he loves the flexibility and diversity of the tasks they get to work on while Adam P, or Blossom, completes tasks as they come in. He admits that his role has completely surpassed what he could have imagined:

“I thought the company would be much more like a big company where you get your table/chair/code and you have to sit there for 8 hours to work and you can’t even get up for a smoke break.” ~ Adam P (Blossom)

Instead, he works alongside seniors at the company, who also happen to be incredibly reputable within the industry itself, all while also learning about Bitcoin.

“We have someone close who knows the codebase top to bottom and doesn’t let us do stupid things…and the coworkers are awesome. Arriving at the office every day is like coming home.” ~ Adam P (Blossom)

Like every superhero team, the powerpuff team admits that they are constantly met with challenges, sometimes leaving them stumped:

“The QR code implementation that we are working on right now has a lot of conditions that have to be met. We are not the first ones who are trying to implement this the right way. It’s a challenge, but that’s what this is all about.” ~ Balázs F. (Bubbles)

Although the team has just been formed, they already have a sense that they’re working on something much bigger than themselves. Every superhero, except perhaps Deadpool, carries some form of intrinsic altruism that compels them to continue their work day in and day out.

“I’m being a part of something that could change the world. The concept of Wasabi is really great and useful. It really is a big thing in every way, just like Bitcoin is, too. I just don’t have all the knowledge to feel like I am irreplaceable, yet. But one day, I will be.” ~ Balázs F. (Bubbles)

The company is going to keep growing and one day, we will be comparing it to the likes of Metropolis, Gotham or even Wakanda. Undoubtedly, Wasabi’s bug zapping team will continue to develop but also encounter more challenges as time progresses. Stay tuned for the upcoming adventures of Wasabi’s Powerpuff Team.

The post Working at Wasabi: The Powerpuff Team appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Eight years ago, David Molnar was a software developer working at what could be considered a typical 9-5 job. Now, he’s the CTO of one of the best established privacy-centric software wallets in the Bitcoin ecosystem. This journey all started when nopara73 came to intern at his company.

Long before Wasabi Wallet’s official existence, David was nopara73’s mentor, teaching him C# while he interned at his company. They maintained this relationship for two years until nopara73 left on a journey across Asia. Nopara73 would continuously check in with David to update him on his work and adventures while David would provide remote work opportunities for nopara73. He admitted that nopara73 continuously tried to persuade him to work with him prior to Wasabi Wallet’s official release, but he always turned down the offer since he was still heavily invested at his previous workplace. Eventually, David realized he had been working at this company for 10+ years and had gotten to the last rung of its corporate ladder. It was time for a change.

After mentioning his plans to leave within a year to nopara73, David was presented with yet another job offer as a senior developer at Wasabi Wallet. He admits that he knew nothing about Bitcoin or how he would be able to program its software at the time, but he accepted the offer under the mindset that:

“If nopara73 could show me the code, sooner or later I’d figure it out.“

It was at that moment that the student became the master.

Nopara73’s offer was exactly what David was looking for as it allowed him to work with fresh, high-end technology while using the newest software and language specifications. Although Bitcoin was relatively unknown, the potential of its development made the proposition even more exciting.

David says he enjoys being pushed to his limits and with Wasabi Wallet, he got just that. In their first month of being reunited, David travelled to Thailand to work alongside nopara73. As idyllic as this sounds, he wasn’t exactly lounging on the beach. Instead, he had to now learn about Bitcoin while learning to program its software using the Mac operating system after working on a Windows PC for 10 years.

“I was literally coding on Mac, not just running the software. It was a pain. I had a Hungarian keyboard with no notations so it was annoying trying to figure out which button does what. But it had to be done, so I learnt and got used to it.”
~ David Molnar

There was a silver lining: “Nicholas Dorier’s N bitcoin made everything convenient because I could use the programming language I’m most familiar with: C#.”

However, the challenges would keep coming as David would soon find out. By March 2019, a mere four months after joining the Wasabi Wallet team, he was selected to speak on behalf of Wasabi Wallet at the 2019 MIT Bitcoin Expo.

Nervous and excited for another adventure, David practised for weeks rewriting his presentation on Wasabi Wallet and CoinJoin many times while watching countless Andreas Antonoupolous videos in preparation for the 20-minute presentation. Now, with numerous presentations under his belt, the nerves have gone but what remains is the elation that comes with being recognized and supported by his peers for the work and dedication that he and his team continuously put into Wasabi Wallet. Undoubtedly, an inspiration to continue working:

“We keep updating ourselves and are creating what is required. We are not just settling because it works. We are always refactoring ourselves. I’ve noticed that I have been changing from time to time. I’m trying to adapt to the new requirements”

This constant evolution is due to the Wasabikas’ work ethic:

“Everyone who works here is engaged with software development, you don’t need to push people to work because they like to work. You are the only one responsible for your own involvement and this is sometimes a good thing because you have the freedom to do anything you want. Of course, anything productive!”
~ David Molnar

Testing Contribution Game

At Wasabi, David introduced Testing Contribution Games in an effort to keep users and developers close enough to receive constructive feedback from the other. He acknowledges that this encourages community involvement and has collectively improved the software’s stability and usability while ensuring that users enjoy the software:

“When you are testing your own products, you automatically have some bias and there’s no way to detach yourself from this because you know how it works and will use it based on your knowledge. You will avoid many test cases and you won’t see some minor, or large issues with the software or the user interface. You won’t do such a complex sweep through of the software. It’s very important that you have fresh eyes and a clean mind to inspect the software for the first time and this can only be done by involving the community.”
~ David Molnar

Lurking Wife Mode

Another one of his innovations at Wasabi Wallet caused quite a bit of controversy. Not for its functionality, but its name: The Lurking Wife Mode. This is a Wasabi Wallet feature that hides sensitive and critical information from physical observers by changing the information to hashtags with one click:

“When we implemented this feature, Nopara73 and I were thinking about the name. I came up with three ideas and one of them was Lurking Wife Mode.

At the time, we had a mysterious loss of funds case. Everyone on the team was trying to figure out how some part of the funds was taken from the wallet. After a week of fruitless investigations, it turned out that the user’s wife sent those funds to an exchange.

It started as a joke, but later it was surprising how much attention we got for how sexist this was. We didn’t think that it would blow up. We never got as much interaction on Twitter for writing code or anything else, but this, this was surprising.“
~ David Molnar

The feature has since been standardized and integrated into Bitcoin Core, though the name has been changed to Privacy Mode. David still maintains a level of pride for its creation.

Becoming CTO

Becoming the CTO of zkSNACKs after nopara73 decided to step down was another challenge that David accepted. He later understood nopara’s decision after realizing the complexity of the workload. “There were daily problems, not regarding the code but everything else, and they take you away from the core tasks that you value and enjoy doing.”

He has since found a method to the madness:

“It’s not about what to do, but what not to do, there are so many ways to go about it. I can find 100 tasks right now that I can work on but you have to find the one that serves the company’s goals the most. So you have to say no to the 99. Find what not to do instead of what to do.”
~ David Molnar

He also maintains a unique perspective in regards to his responsibilities in general:

“Sometimes I feel like MacGyver when there is a problem,someone is missing from a specific place, and I can jump in. I like to do this because it’s a new challenge, something to learn. I like adapting and figuring out how to do things in a specific role. Sometimes my solutions are like MacGyver’s solutions, but in the end, it works.”
~ David Molnar

Undoubtedly, David has come a long way from being introduced to Bitcoin by his former intern, and what a journey it continues to be. He believes that Bitcoin is revolutionary, Wasabi Wallet is a part of the revolution and he wants everyone to take part:

“Bitcoin is an open space and I would like to invite everyone to join. I’m not only talking about buying Bitcoin but developing, creating…feel free to do anything because that’s what Bitcoin is about. Contribute to open-source projects – it’s a very exhilarating feeling.”
~ David Molnar

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