BitDevs Athens is a community for those interested in discussing and participating in the research and development of Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related protocols. You can be well versed with or new to the topics, all are welcome. Be advised: discussion will be technical.
Our monthly Socratic Seminar events are formatted to foster debate, information sharing and lively discussion. If this is your first time, please read about our Socratic Seminar series here.
This day’s topic will be:
1) On-chain Bitcoin privacy
Reading material, with shortest material listed first:
If you have 5 minutes:
- Fungibility Graveyard by Seth for Privacy
Maintained tracker of every known incident where an exchange flagged, froze, or closed an account over CoinJoin usage.
- Binance Returns Frozen BTC After User “Promises” Not to Use CoinJoin
- Why Metadata Matters by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Not Bitcoin-specific, but frames the argument for why transaction metadata (amounts, timing, counterparties) is as sensitive as content.
If you have 20 minutes:
- CoinJoin — Bitcoin Wiki by Greg Maxwell
The original CoinJoin concept page. Still the clearest short explanation of how multiple users combine inputs into one transaction to break common-input-ownership heuristics.
- Why Are Exchanges Avoiding CoinJoined Bitcoin? by The Bitcoin Manual
Explains the mechanics of how exchanges identify and reject coinjoined UTXOs, the analytics firms involved, and what it means for everyday users.
Law firm analysis of the Fifth Circuit ruling. Explains why immutable smart contracts aren’t “property” under IEEPA and what it means for future sanctions on code.
The original fidelity bond proposal. Walks through the economic reasoning: why time-locked capital makes Sybil attacks expensive, and how takers should weigh bond values.
If you have 1 hour:
The full WabiSabi paper. Covers KVAC construction, Pedersen commitments, range proofs, and the registration protocol. Requires comfort with elliptic curve cryptography.
The actual charging document. Shows how the DOJ frames non-custodial software as money transmission. Essential reading for understanding the legal theory that threatens all privacy tooling.
- Van Loon v. Dept. of Treasury — Fifth Circuit Opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit (Nov 2024)
The full court ruling that overturned OFAC’s Tornado Cash sanctions. Readable even for non-lawyers. The “vending machine” analogy and the property-vs-code distinction are on pages 15-22.
2) Review of technical Bitcoin news/topics. In every meetup we go through technical Bitcoin news.
How should I prepare? Read the material.
🗓 Thursday, March 24, 2026
🕔 Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM EET
📍 Athens SuiHub
Agiou Markou 22 · Athens
✨ BitDevs Athens is a community for those interested in discussing and participating in the research and development of Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related protocols. You can be well versed with or new to the topics, all are welcome. Be advised: discussion will be technical.