Alright, buckle up folks, because we’re diving headfirst into the mind-boggling world of Bitcoin privacy with none other than Yuval Kogman—who’s been riding the crypto wave before some of us even knew what the internet was for. This guy’s been a tech enthusiast since forever, scribbling code in languages like Rust, C#, Go, and Python, and has dabbled in the dizzying complexities of privacy coins and the reason most of us sleep with one eye open – Bitcoin.
Imagine being pulled into this whirlwind by your dad, who casually drops cryptographic bombshells after a chat with cryptography legend Adi Shamir. Yup, that was Yuval. He got a sneak peek into the mad world of digital currency before it even had a name, playing with hashcash on his mailserver like some sort of digital alchemist.
Fast forward to the epicenter of this chaos—the elusive world of privacy in Bitcoin. Yuval’s been gazing into it like a fortune teller peering into a crystal ball, intrigued but skeptical. The thought of anyone snooping on his “I-shouldn’t-have-bought-that” purchases kinda freaked him out. There’s a stubborn streak of impostor syndrome here too; even as he figured out Bitcoin’s the real MVP, he couldn’t stop himself from trying to devour the infinite buffet of crypto knowledge.
For a while, Yuval lurked on the murky edges of Reddit and Bitcoin Twitter, absorbing snippets of wisdom without joining the circus. Until, that is, he stumbled into an open voice chat server masquerading as a dragon’s lair through the charms of a podcast. There, amid roars and chaotic banter, he found his crew.
Hold onto your hats, though, because things take a turn. In this wild journey, Yuval helped shape the WabiSabi protocol for Wasabi Wallet 2.0—an attempt at making coin interactions more like a covert chess match than an open diary. But alas, a quagmire of oversight and ignored wisdom left him disillusioned. You see, his meticulous work on ensuring privacy didn’t quite make it to the final cut, as his supposed comrades opted for vibes over facts.
Rubbing salt in the wound, despite all their “privacy first” claims, Yuval found out zkSNACKs was keeping logs. JUST. NO. So, he walked, unwilling to dance to a beat of ignorance and negligence.
Yuval’s stance on Bitcoin privacy today? Let’s just say the rose-tinted glasses have come off. The zealous exchanges nixing users over privacy tool usage irks him. There’s a blend of user apathy, zero-sum brainworm snake oil peddlers hawking their “privacy wallets,” and a discourse painfully stuck in the mud.
Now over at Spiral, Yuval’s on a quest—transforming the centralized coinjoin elephant in the room to a more small-d democratic affair. Because why should privacy come with a terrifying price tag? It shouldn’t. On the list of quixotic ambitions: make it sturdy against intersection attacks too.
Throw in the muddled mess of covenant chatter like CTV+CSFS, where debates have twisted into a tribal sort of playground fight—Yuval’s not impressed. And why should he be, when the big picture gets lost amidst squabbles over opcode favorites.
Yuval, ever soulful, implores the average Jane and Joe Bitcoin to make little waves for privacy. Investigate, discern, and don’t let inertia lull you into complacency. Exercise those rights today or they might as well become ghosts tomorrow.
“It’s messy, it’s complex, but staying passive isn’t an option,”—that’s the vibe here. Dive in, stay curious, and remember: Use it or lose it.
