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The Bitcoin Game #70: Michael Flaxman, Securing Bitcoin

The Bitcoin Game

Release Date: 09/08/2019

Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 6 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Giacomo Zucco show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 6 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Giacomo Zucco

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays and Jimmy Song continue their series of interviews examining the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Because Tone is only releasing this series as streaming video on X and YouTube, "The Bitcoin Game" podcast feed was revived to host this interview series for people who prefer a low-bandwidth audio podcast to consume this long-form content. This is Part 6 of the series, this time featuring Giacomo Zucco. The interview was recorded on November 13, 2025, in a side room at the Bitcoin Historico event in El Salvador.

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Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 5 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Knut Svanholm show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 5 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Knut Svanholm

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays and Jimmy Song continue their series of interviews examining the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Because Tone is only releasing this series as streaming video on X and YouTube, "The Bitcoin Game" podcast feed was revived to host this interview series for people who prefer a low-bandwidth audio podcast to consume this long-form content. This is Part 5 of the series, this time featuring Knut Svanholm. The interview was recorded on November 12, 2025, in a side room at the Bitcoin Historico event in El Salvador. The beginning of the recording has been edited to...

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Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 4 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Murch show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 4 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Murch

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays and Jimmy Song continue their series of interviews examining the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Because Tone is only releasing this series as streaming video on X and YouTube, "The Bitcoin Game" podcast feed was revived to host this interview series for people who prefer a low-bandwidth audio podcast to consume this long-form content. This is Part 4 of the series, featuring Bitcoin Core contributor Murch. The interview was recorded on November 7, 2025.

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Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 3 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Bob Burnett show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 3 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Bob Burnett

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays came out of retirement as a content creator to host a new series of interviews focusing on the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Together with Jimmy Song, he is speaking with a wide range of well-known Bitcoiners on all sides of the debate to help users understand what is at stake. Since Tone didn't set up an audio RSS feed for this series, and a lot of people prefer a low-bandwidth podcast over streaming video on YouTube or X, I brought this podcast feed out of retirement to make the audio easily available. This is Part 3 of the series, featuring Bob Burnett...

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Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 2 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, Luke Dashjr, and BitcoinMechanic show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 2 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, Luke Dashjr, and BitcoinMechanic

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays came out of retirement as a content creator to host a new series of interviews focusing on the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Together with Jimmy Song, he is speaking with a wide range of well-known Bitcoiners on all sides of the debate to help users understand what is at stake. Since Tone didn't set up an audio RSS feed for this series, and a lot of people prefer a low-bandwidth podcast over streaming video on YouTube or X, I brought this podcast feed out of retirement to make the audio easily available. This is Part 2 of the series, featuring Luke Dashjr...

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Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 1 with Tone Vays, Adam Back, and Jimmy Song show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 1 with Tone Vays, Adam Back, and Jimmy Song

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays came out of retirement as a content creator to host a new series of interviews focusing on the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Together with Jimmy Song, he is speaking with a wide range of well-known Bitcoiners on all sides of the debate to help users understand what is at stake. Since Tone didn't set up an audio RSS feed for this series, and a lot of people prefer a low-bandwidth podcast over streaming video on YouTube or X, I brought this podcast feed out of retirement to make the audio easily available. This is Part 1 of the series, featuring Adam Back....

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The Bitcoin Game #76: Andrew The Bitcoin Game #76: Andrew "Cybergibbons" Tierney

The Bitcoin Game

Welcome to episode 76 of The Bitcoin Game, sponsored by eToro. Andrew Tierney, otherwise known online as Cybergibbons, hacks everything from oil rigs to Cryptocurrency hardware wallets. We conducted this interview a bit before COVID-19 took over the planet, back when we were more worried about malware than going to the grocery store without an N95 mask. Andrew and I discuss hacking hardware wallets, IoT devices, home routers, his day job as a hacker for hire, and other stuff too.

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The Bitcoin Game #75: 2014 Interview with Dr. Jochen The Bitcoin Game #75: 2014 Interview with Dr. Jochen "Johoe" Hoenicke

The Bitcoin Game

Welcome to The Bitcoin Game, sponsored by eToro. I'm Rob Mitchell. One of my favorite old interviews is an exclusive with Dr. Jochen "Johoe" Hoenicke, the 2014 Bitcoin Hero. He rescued insecure Bitcoin from Blockchain.info wallets. A bit after this 2014 interview, Johoe responsibly published a side-channel attack on a TREZOR, which led to Satoshi Labs hiring him. Enjoy my first "rebroadcast" to celebrate 75, the only audio interview with Johoe that I'm aware of. Full show notes & links at TheBitcoinGame.com

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The Bitcoin Game #74: David Jevans of CipherTrace show art The Bitcoin Game #74: David Jevans of CipherTrace

The Bitcoin Game

Welcome to episode 74 of The Bitcoin Game, sponsored by eToro.

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The Bitcoin Game #73: Tim Pastoor, P2P Identity show art The Bitcoin Game #73: Tim Pastoor, P2P Identity

The Bitcoin Game

Tim Pastoor has been focused on peer-to-peer identity and reputation systems for the past five years, supporting Martti Malmi's work in the space (Martti was the first coder to work with Satoshi on Bitcoin). Twitter's Jack Dorsey recently got tons of attention promoting the goal of decentralized social media, and P2P identity may well be the base layer for such projects. Please check the full show notes with links at TheBitcoinGame.com.

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More Episodes

Welcome to episode 70 of The Bitcoin Game, I'm Rob Mitchell. I'm always wanting to learn things via my podcast, and hopefully it helps others learn too. So when I heard Michael Flaxman on Stephan Livera's podcast, I thought he was such a compelling guest that I just had to have him on The Bitcoin Game. In this episode we dive into details about Bitcoin, security, and multisig.


LINKS

Michael Flaxman on Twitter
https://twitter.com/mflaxman

Michael Flaxman's Website
https://www.michaelflaxman.com

Michael Flaxman's Bitcoin Multisig Hardware Wallet Comparison
https://bitcoin-hardware-wallet.github.io

Michael's In-Depth Article on Multisig
Coming Soon!

Michael Flaxman on Stephan Livera Podcast (Hardware Wallets)
https://stephanlivera.com/episode/97

Mt. Gox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox

2014 Proof of Reserves article
https://www.coindesk.com/krakens-audit-proves-holds-100-bitcoins-reserve

PyCoin (Open Source Library)
https://pypi.org/project/pycoin/0.51

Shamir's Shared Secret
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing

Coldcard Hardware Wallet
https://coldcardwallet.com

Trezor Hardware Wallet
https://trezor.io

Ledger Hardware Wallet
https://www.ledger.com

Hardware Wallet Passphrase (Trezor guide)
https://blog.trezor.io/passphrase-the-ultimate-protection-for-your-accounts-3a311990925b

Hardware Wallet Mnemonic Seed Phrase / BIP 39
https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/Mnemonic_phrase

Ian Coleman's BIP 39 Tool
https://iancoleman.io/bip39

BIP 174 / Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) Github
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0174.mediawiki

Crypto Steel (One of several Seed Backup Solutions)
https://cryptosteel.com

Multisig
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature


Electrum Bitcoin Wallet
https://electrum.org

Electrum Personal Server Github
https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server

Secure Element (Gemalto site - supplier to Ledger)
https://www.justaskgemalto.com/us/what-is-a-secure-element

HD Wallet Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet (HD Wallet)
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deterministic_wallet

Random Number Generator (RNG)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generation

Segwit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegWit

Bitcoin Core
https://bitcoin.org/en/download

Graphical User Interface (GUI)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface

Bitcoin Testnet
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet

Nonce
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_nonce

Tails OS
https://tails.boum.org


If you liked this episode, I bet you'll like my fairly exclusive interviews with Peter Kroll, the creator of the paper wallet, and white-hat hacker Johoe, who recovered Bitcoin during the 2013 Android RNG issue.

The Bitcoin Game #56: Paper Wallet Inventor Peter Kroll
https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/the-bitcoin-game-56-paper-wallet-inventor-peter-kroll

The Bitcoin Game #7: Bitcoin Hero Jochen AKA Johoe
https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/the-bitcoin-game-7-bitcoin-hero-jochen-aka-johoe


SPONSOR

Bitcoin Keychains from BTCkeychain.com

While much of a Bitcoiner's time is spent in the world of digital assets, sometimes it's nice to own a physical representation of the virtual things you care about. For just the price of a cup of coffee or two (at Starbucks), you can own the world-famous Bitcoin Keychain.

As Seen On
The Guardian TechCrunch Engadget Ars Technica Popular Mechanics
Infowars Maxim Inc. ViceRT Bitcoin Magazine VentureBeat
PRI CoinDesk Washington Post Forbes Fast Company

Bitcoin Keychains - BTCKeychain.com


CREDITS

All music in this episode of The Bitcoin Game was created by Rob Mitchell.

The Bitcoin Game box art was created from an illustration by Rock Barcellos.

Bitcoin (Segwit) tipping address:
3AYvXZseExRn3Dum8z9tFUk9jtQK6KMU4g

Lightning Network tipping:
https://tippin.me/@TheBTCGame


Note: We've migrated our RSS feed (and primary content host) from SoundCloud to Libsyn. So if you noticed the SoundCloud numbers aren't nearly as high as they used to be, that's the reason.