Agenda browser
bitcoin++ Riga 2025, privacy edition
Browse the schedule by room to spot conflicts and follow what comes next in each track.
← Back to event page
State of Lightning Privacy
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 10:15 AM – 10:45 AM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
An overview of the current state of Lightning privacy, and recent developments.
State of Bitcoin Privacy
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 10:45 AM – 11:15 AM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- keynote
- Duration
- 30m
What’s missing, what's on the roadmap, and what’s still to build.
What you don't want to hear
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 11:15 AM – 11:45 AM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
72% of the world currently lives under authoritarian rule. This year is the 18th consecutive year of decline in the number of democracies worldwide. We have come to expect limitations on free speech and free association from places like China, India, and large parts of Africa; but not Europe, the UK, and the US are becoming increasingly draconian in their limitations on speech, association, and protest. More than ever before we need permissionless, unstoppable tools that give us control and agency over who we talk to and what we can say. We can no longer trust centralized tech and the stakes are high. Nostr offers us a real chance at building these tools. It's unique characteristics combined with strong modern encryption techniques give us the ability to have all truly private conversations, while completely hiding metadata, all while using public relay infrastructure. Make no mistake, this is a race. Either those in control will continue to tighten their grip on our liberty or we will build tools that are outside of human interference and control.
Hackathon Team Building
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 12:15 PM – 12:30 PM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- hackathon
- Duration
- 15m
Optional!! Come find a team to work with. We’ll help everyone find someone else to work with, and then you can start making plans for what you’ll build over lunch.
Mapping the Space of Network Privacy Solutions
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 10:00 AM – 10:45 AM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 45m
Internet routing protocols were not designed for privacy. As a result, network communication metadata is exposed by default and available for collection by any network intermediary or eavesdropper. A number of solutions have been proposed to mitigate network privacy threats, typically involving routing traffic through various intermediaries rather than sending it directly. This includes the Lightning Network, Dandelion, VPNs and mixnets. This talk will review these solutions and discuss their privacy features as well as their limitations with respect to different network adversary models.
Cashu Anonymous Credentials
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 10:45 AM – 11:15 AM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
Overcoming the limitations of Chaumian ecash
Optimizing coinjoin transactions
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 11:15 AM – 11:45 AM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
As Bitcoin's largest coinjoin coordinator, my goal is to optimize rounds for stability while consuming block space efficiently. There is a tradeoff between speed, cost, and reliability when configuring round parameters. Additionally, I seek to refute some commonly spread myths about coinjoins while also addressing their limitations.
ASmap Workshop
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 10:00 AM – 10:45 AM
- Location
- Workshops Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 45m
ASmap is a Core feature that helps prevent eclipse-style attacks on your node by building a map of IP networks to the AS that owns them. In this workshop we'll get familiar with the problem and the tools to help address it by generating an ASmap.
UTXOracle: Historical Significance of the On-Chain Price
- Time
- Thu, Aug 7 · 10:45 AM – 11:45 AM
- Location
- Workshops Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 1h
Before UTXOracle, all bitcoin price feeds relied on external exchanges, introducing trusted third parties and blind spots into what should be a trustless system. UTXOracle takes a different approach: it derives price directly from the bitcoin blockchain by identifying statistically significant transaction flows, without relying on off-chain data. This talk introduces UTXOracle as a novel lens for understanding Bitcoin’s internal price signal, a signal that emerges from crowdsourced economic activity rather than being imposed by markets. We’ll explore how UTXOracle reads directly from one's own node, defines canonical prices through a simple cluster-centering algorithm, and how its method reveals patterns lost in exchange-centric views. Beyond just a tool, UTXOracle invites us to consider what it means for Bitcoin to price itself. We'll discuss why this matters for censorship resistance, timestamped economic history, and future applications like sovereign node pricing and decentralized oracle infrastructure.
Comparing Coinjoin Implementations
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
How do the current widely used coinjoin protocols compare, and how private are they actually? We'll go through the big three: payjoin, joinmarket, and wasabi, and review what they are and what flaws they have.
El Tor - A high bandwidth Tor network fork incentivized with Bitcoin
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
Come learn about the architecture of the El Tor network! El Tor is a high-bandwidth Tor network fork, incentivized by the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Users can host El Tor relays and earn sats for sharing their bandwidth. The urgency for such a network has never been greater, especially in light of escalating privacy threats globally—from Brazil's VPN prohibition to the legal challenges faced by Telegram's Pavel Durov. El Tor aims to transcend the existing boundaries of the Tor network and to scale beyond its current limitation. The project was inspired by the cypherpunk vision for a private internet. BOLT 12 offers (with blinded paths) was the catalyst to build such a network. Lightning is used for privately paying relays out of band. A higher bandwidth and more reliable Tor network can lead to future services being launched as hidden services by default, instead of "clearnet" (or KYC'd) servers. - Read the spec here https://github.com/el-tor/eltord/blob/master/spec/00_spec.md - Technical details on paid circuits https://github.com/el-tor/eltord/blob/master/spec/01_paid_circuits.md
Panel: Building your privacy stack
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- panel
- Duration
- 1h
Hackathon Finals
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- hackathon
- Duration
- 45m
Top finalists who make it out of the Expo will be invited to present their projects to compete for the top prize.
Cashu: Bitcoin micropayments with maximum privacy
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 1:00 PM – 1:30 PM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- keynote
- Duration
- 30m
To come…
Payjoin: Scaling is Privacy
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
Privacy and Scaling are often viewed as competing goals, but they go hand in hand. The Lightning Network is arguably the most widely used privacy tool on Bitcoin, despite not being its explicit purpose. This talk re-frames Payjoin in this context.
CISA
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
- Pros and Cons of a CISA softfork (what's in the HRF Report) - Current state of proposal and implementation FWIW, I could speak longer than 20min but I like to keep it short :) But if there is still room in the schedule let me know and I can extend the content.
Privacy issues in the Bitcredit network
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 2:30 PM – 3:00 PM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
Bitcredit main goal is to make the use of Bitcoin in the real economy possible. "Orange-pilled businesses". The protocol is based on the concept of peer to peer credit contract between companies based on a proven financial instrument such as a bill of exchange denominated in bitcoin. And further adding liquidity to bills of exchange based on ecash, with which companies will be able to pay their workers. In this talk I would like to focus on anon mode, a mode in the application that will allow businesses to remain completely anonymous.
Privacy beyond Bitcoin
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 3:30 PM – 4:15 PM
- Location
- Main Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 45m
Why you should work on privacy projects that aren’t “bitcoin”. An overview of technologies and contribution opportunities that are key to building the cryptoanarchist project. * Network level privacy (e.g. Mixnets) * Paths to KYC-resistant hosting * Autonomous, self-replicating applications * Private, decentralized communities
The state of ecash design: progress, risks, and what’s ahead.
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
The state of ecashdesin : progress, risks, and what’s ahead. Over the past few years, Cashu has gone from an experimental concept to a growing ecosystem. I want to highlight the major development breakthroughs that helped get us here, the problems we’re still solving, and what might be coming next. I’ll go over stuff like: How people are finding mints (and how tools like bitcoinmints.com + Nostr are helping) What wallets are doing to help users avoid getting rugged How we’re starting to show mint reliability through things like the mint auditor Some newer, more experimental features like multinut payments, mint authorization, and NIP 60 wallets, It’s basically a look at what’s been figured out, what’s still messy, and what’s coming next, from the perspective of a designer who is working on this day-to-day.
Miniscript
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
Bitcoin Miniscript: The Key to Smarter Wallets
Be your own ISP - non KYC internet access
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- workshop
- Duration
- 1h
How much of an identity do you really need in order to communicate? TollGate is a WiFi captive portal that accepts e-cash for internet access. You can buy internet access from my TollGate and resell it to someone outside of my to form a "mesh network" that doesn't require a routing algorithm. Your business decisions determine the route of the traffic. Let's try it out in the hands on workshop!
Operation ORCHESTRA 2.0 Annual Status Report
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- workshop
- Duration
- 1h
A decade ago, Operation ORCHESTRA unveiled the blueprint for covert success in the technological domain—and it surpassed all expectations. Following its resounding achievements, an extension was swiftly approved to lay the groundwork for ORCHESTRA 2.0. This year's briefing will update decision-makers and program liaisons on the goals, breakthroughs, and strategies employed in the highly classified next chapter of systemic orchestration in the decentralized era.
Payment Channels and Privacy
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 1h
In this workshop, you'll create and test payment channels based on the hedgehog protocol, and along the way learn how off chain transactions can improve financial privacy
Timelocks and Their Use in Recovery Solutions
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 3:30 PM – 4:15 PM
- Location
- Talks Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 45m
Absolute and Relative Timelocks in Bitcoin are necessary for 2nd layer solutions, but what else can we do with them? Let's dive into how timelocks operate in Bitcoin, what they can\cannot do, and how we can use them to recover our Bitcoin in case our seed was lost.
Privacy Lego: Where Does Cashu Fit in Your Bitcoin Stack?
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM
- Location
- Workshops Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 30m
Bitcoin gives us sound money, Lightning brings instant payments, but where does Cashu fit? This interactive session explores Cashu's unique role in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Through hands-on examples and live demonstrations using Rust Cashu implementations, participants will discover when and why to integrate Cashu into their Bitcoin applications.
Build your own BTClock
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
- Location
- Workshops Stage
- Type
- workshop
- Duration
- 1h
If you buy a workshop kit for EUR 150,- payable in Bitcoin (on-chain or LN), you can build your own FOSS/H BTClock during a guided building session. Depending on the available time, I could explain about how the project started and give a high overview of the hardware (15 minutes). The building itself is about 30 minutes as we created kits that only require screwing it together (no soldering required).
Light Clients Aren't Dead!
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
- Location
- Workshops Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 1h
The current state of bitcoin clients outside of Bitcoin Core typically trade off speed for privacy. 2140 is attempting to bridge the gap to bring better privacy for resource-constrained applications. The talk will cover the current state of BIP 157/158 compact block filters, strategies for implementations to incorporate compact block filters to provide better privacy for their users, and ideas for future silent payments wallets built with private light clients.
Private Web Payments with Cashu (and nostr)
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
- Location
- Workshops Stage
- Type
- workshop
- Duration
- 1h
In this workshop we will explore how we can utilise open networks like Cashu and nostr to create privacy preserving payment rails on the web.
Lessons from Building Vexl: Balancing Encryption, Anonymity, and UX in Bitcoin Apps
- Time
- Fri, Aug 8 · 3:30 PM – 4:15 PM
- Location
- Workshops Stage
- Type
- talk
- Duration
- 45m
What does it take to build a peer-to-peer Bitcoin app that truly respects user privacy—without sacrificing usability? In this talk, we’ll share lessons learned from developing Vexl, a no-KYC, client-first Bitcoin trading app. We’ll explore the technical and architectural challenges of storing encrypted data in the database, designing anonymous communication and trust models, and crafting a user experience that remains intuitive despite strict privacy constraints. If you’re building in the Bitcoin space and care about user privacy while creating apps people can actually use, this talk is for you.