bitcoin++ stands sovereign

keynote

Conference Kickoff

niftynei, Evan Lin

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 10:15 AM – 10:30 AM

Location

Main Stage

Type

keynote

Duration

15m

Let the conferencing begin

Speakers

niftynei

bitcoin++

X Nostr GitHub Instagram Website

Evan Lin

X Nostr GitHub

talk

Why building on NBXplorer

Nicolas Dorier

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 10:45 AM – 11:15 AM

Location

Main Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

Nicolas talks about his work building NBXplorer.

Speakers

Nicolas Dorier

BTCPayServer

X Nostr Website

talk

Self-Custody ≠ Sovereignty: Permission-less continuity > Unilateral Exit

Anant Tapadia

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 10:45 AM – 11:15 AM

Location

Talks Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

Most Bitcoin tools stop at self-custody, but self-custody only gives permissionless exit. Real sovereignty requires permissionless use and permissionless continuity — the ability for a tool to keep functioning w/o the creator if needed. Developers rarely see this side because the real chokepoints aren’t in code; they’re in governance, regulation, incentives, and legal structures that quietly shape what tools can or cannot ship. This talk uses real examples to show why technically sound systems still fail, why most wallets today aren’t actually sovereign, and why developers themselves should care about building tools that outlive the entities that create them.

Speakers

Anant Tapadia

Bitcoin Keeper, Bitcoin Tribe, Bitcoin4India

X GitHub

talk

Design and implementation of Frostsnap, the first FROST signing device

Lloyd Fournier

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 11:15 AM – 11:45 AM

Location

Main Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

You've got to be very careful applying a new cryptographic scheme to an existing problem because it's so easy to make things worse. FROST, the threshold multisignature scheme with applications to Bitcoin, is no different. Lloyd will reveal the tricks the Frostsnap team used to exploit FROST while hiding (most of) the complexity from the user.

Speakers

Lloyd Fournier

Frostsnap

X Nostr GitHub Website

workshop

Sovereign Stability: Hands-On with Stable Channels

Tony Klausing

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM

Location

Talks Stage

Type

workshop

Duration

1h

Get hands-on with Stable Channels, an open-source system that brings stabilized, bitcoin-backed dollar balances to the Lightning Network. Stable Channels offers a decentralized and self-custodial alternative to centralized stablecoins. Install the desktop app for macOS, Linux, or Windows, or build the Rust code from source. You’ll spin up a Lightning node, create a mainnet Stable Channel, and observe the stabilization mechanism end-to-end.

Speakers

Tony Klausing

Stable Channels

X Nostr GitHub Website

talk

Really Open AI: The Future of Open Source

Alex Gleason

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 11:45 AM – 12:15 PM

Location

Main Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

With the accessibility of AI, we are closer than ever to actualizing the promise of open source: an internet where all code is freely shared, edited, and shipped by anyone, anywhere. But AI companies are also the biggest threat to this vision, hijacking the spirit of openness in the arms race to corporate dominance. This talk will discuss what open AI actually looks like — with full user control at every level, from clients and agents to models — and how we’re making it possible through Nostr and Bitcoin. Join our workshop later to try it hands-on!

Speakers

Alex Gleason

Soapbox

X Nostr GitHub Website

workshop

Portal’s Protocol to Sovereign Identity

Alekos Filini, John Galt

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Location

Main Stage

Type

workshop

Duration

1h

A brief introduction to sovereign identity with Portal: what it is, how it works and how to get started

Speakers

Alekos Filini

Portal technologies Inc

X GitHub Website

John Galt

Portal technologies Inc

GitHub Website

workshop

Workshop: Let's make a FROST key for comfy self-custody!

Nick Farrow

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Location

Talks Stage

Type

workshop

Duration

2h

Lloyd, Evan, and likely Adam will also be attending. I still need to flesh out this idea with Lloyd, I will need to write some template code + basic infrastructure for the coding part of the workshop. We've never done this before but I think it is very feasible and would be awesome for participants. I would do some practice run-throughs well ahead of the conference. Phase 1 - Distributed Key Generation Theory - Basics of asymmetric cryptography (private & public key) - Shamir secret sharing (polynomials on whiteboard & discuss as group) - Interaction: get three audience members to shout out (simple) polynomial coefficients - Draw out and go through through Distributed Key Generation with these polynomials on the whiteboard. - At the end, we'll have three verified secret shares that correspond to a group private key (which no one ever learned!) Phase 2 - Let's make a FROST key - Programming! * Will use rust but no prior knowledge. * git clone * Once setup, on a hackmd (or better system if I can come up with one) we get participants to write their name next to an index (list: 1, 2 ...). * We decide on a threshold as a group (choose 2 or 3 so people can go crazy with signing later). * Participants each creates a scalar polynomial in rust! (2-3 LOC), write to disk using tool provided in code template. * Participants convert their scalar polynomial into a point polynomial, pastes into hackmd under their name. (1 LOC) * Participants evaluate their scalar polynomial at indexes (1, 2, ... n_parties), and pastes these evaluations on hackmd. (1 LOC) * Speakers collate these 'keygen shares', and distribute them to the intended recipients. * This could be done between tables through DMs. * E.g. Party 1's evaluation at i=3 goes to Party 3, evaluation at i=4 goes to Party 4. * Each audience participant receives their keygen shares. * They sum them all up to result in their FROST secret share! Phase 3 - Signing! * Introduce the concept of Nonces and how they relate to FROST. * Show signing API (show what we need to achieve signing!) * Show secpfun API to create a secret & public nonce. * Let audience participants pair up and share public nonces among themselves, (via hackmd or DMs)/ * Each participant will sign under a set of nonces with their partner! * Share and aggregate signature shares -> finished signature! * Verify signature * Bonus task -> sign nostr event! ~2 hours. --- Possible additional talk we could do: ### Dark Skippy Talk & Demo Introduction of Bitcoin hardware wallets. Dumbed down refresher on Schnorr signature mathematics (whiteboard or screen). Discuss the types attacks that a malicious signing device can perform. Start with easiest (predetermined private key), progress to tricks (output unrelated public keys), then nonce attacks (nonce-reuse), then introduce exfil attacks. See https://darkskippy.com/taxonomy.html. Introduce Dark Skippy and significance. Explanation of how Dark Skippy works, highlevel description of Pollard's Kangaroo Algorithm. Live Demo: Audience draw seedwords, or speakers generate onscreen. Import seed onto a corrupted SeedSigner (airgapped!1!). Fund wallet with 3 utxos. Run Dark Skippy attacker view onscreen. Sign a 3 input transaction, Broadcast Tx, thank u for the seedwords. <1 hour.

Speakers

Nick Farrow

Frostsnap

X Nostr GitHub Website

workshop

Building with open source AI (101)

Chad Curtis

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Location

Main Stage

Type

workshop

Duration

1h

Build a Nostr app with AI-assisted programming, open source at every level! No programming, code, AI, or Nostr experience needed — open to complete beginners and experienced developers alike! You will walk away from this workshop knowing how to build websites and apps on Nostr with open source AI tools, how to publish your project and share it, how to edit an existing project with AI, and how to submit your changes to open source developers.

Speakers

Chad Curtis

Soapbox

Nostr GitHub Website

talk

Preventing xpub reuse across wallets

Kevin Loaec

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 3:45 PM – 4:15 PM

Location

Main Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

Signing devices are great, but they are not wallets. You may use them for multiple different wallets, at the same time! While "accounts" were introduced for this purpose, users don't know/care about it. This talk is the presentation of the current state of research for making xpubs always different, each time you use your signing device for a new wallet.

Speakers

Kevin Loaec

Wizardsardine

X Nostr GitHub Website

workshop

Building Sovereign Banks with Fedi

Alex Lewin

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 3:45 PM – 4:45 PM

Location

Talks Stage

Type

workshop

Duration

1h

Banks used to be great... then everything changed when the surveillance state attacked. Pt. 1 Learn about building self-sovereign community banks with federated Chaumian ecash. Pt. 2 Hands on workshop to build a fedimint wallet with the Fedimint SDK.

Speakers

Alex Lewin

Fedi

X GitHub

talk

Building a pure silent payment mobile wallet: challenges and hindsight

Dana Wallet

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 4:15 PM – 4:45 PM

Location

Main Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

Silent Payment is a static payment code scheme that rely on non interactive ECDH operations between sender and recipient(s) of a transaction to generate the scriptpubkeys, which means wallet developers need to totally rethink the way a wallet works. Dana is an attempt at a pure silent payment, privacy preserving mobile wallet, and highlight the main challenges and opportunities that wallet developers will encounter working on silent payment.

Speakers

Dana Wallet

Silent Payments

Nostr GitHub

talk

You Should Write A BIP

Ava Chow

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 4:45 PM – 5:15 PM

Location

Main Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

BIPs are the standards documents for Bitcoin, but they don't cover every aspect of how Bitcoin is used. In this talk, I will explain why anyone who is writing software for Bitcoin should also consider writing a BIP.

Speakers

Ava Chow

bitcoin/bitcoin

X GitHub Website

talk

Self Sovereign Medical Records

Jimmy Zhang

Time

Mon, Dec 15 · 4:45 PM – 5:15 PM

Location

Talks Stage

Type

talk

Duration

30m

I will introduce the concept of medical sovereignty (what it is and why it's important), give an overview of healthcare data access within the US (it's very fiat), and lay out a roadmap of how someone could start to take control over their own medical data.

Speakers

Jimmy Zhang

X Nostr GitHub