While at the MIT Bitcoin Expo last month I was able to sit down with Bitcoin Core developer Sjors Provoost. Sjors is a physicist turned Bitcoin developer, which believe it or not is actually a pretty common phenomenon. He began contributing to Bitcoin Core in 2017, a very turbulent time during which the activation of Segregated Witness was playing out in the culmination of the block size wars with the User Activated Softfork and the New York Agreement. He is also the co-host of Bitcoin, Explained, a podcast done with Aaron van Wirdum, the current Editor in Chief of Bitcoin Magazine. Most recently he has also written the book Bitcoin: A Work In Progress, explaining technical aspects of Bitcoin. Each chapter pairs with an episode of the podcast. We talked about the Bitcoin Core project itself. How it’s organized, what it’s like to work on, and some of the challenges that can pop up for those who take the leap into contributing directly to the Bitcoin Core itself. Watch the interview here: