For the past few months, something's been nagging at me about how Bitcoin privacy and security tools get covered online.

Most reviews and guides are based on reading documentation, watching tutorials, or testing features in the most basic way possible. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, it's how most content works. But when we're talking about tools that are supposed to protect your financial privacy and secure your Bitcoin, "I clicked around the interface for 20 minutes" doesn't feel like enough.

So I decided to try something different.

From Writing About Tools to Verifying Them

Instead of just explaining how Sparrow Wallet works, I spent three days verifying it. I analyzed the repository, checked GPG signatures, built it from source code, and compared my build byte-for-byte with the official release. Then I tested features in offline mode to avoid privacy risks.

The result? I found things I never would have discovered from documentation alone—Java compatibility issues, certificate problems, submodule dependencies. More importantly, I could definitively say: "The official release contains exactly what the source code says it should. No hidden modifications."

That matters when you're trusting software with your Bitcoin.

What Changed

I started contributing to open source Bitcoin and Nostr projects. Not just reporting bugs, but actually fixing them and submitting pull requests.

In one session, I found a security vulnerability in Primal Web Spark where background operations were trying to decrypt protected wallet keys before the user even entered their PIN. That's the kind of issue you only discover by reading code and testing systematically.

My development environment evolved from Windows Command Prompt to proper Git workflows and VS Code. I installed the Rust toolchain to explore WhiteNoise, a privacy-focused chat app. I'm building btc-verify, a tool to automate GPG signature verification and reproducible builds.

None of this was planned. But each step made it clearer: if Bitesize Media is going to explain Bitcoin privacy and security tools, we should actually understand how they work at a technical level.

What This Means for You

Bitesize Media isn't becoming a developer blog full of technical jargon. The goal is still the same: make Bitcoin privacy and security tools accessible and understandable.

But now, when we publish a guide or review, it's backed by hands-on verification work. When we say a tool is safe, we've checked. When we explain how something works, we've built it and tested it ourselves.

You'll still get digestible, practical content. But the research behind it goes deeper.

What's Coming

Starting now, I'll be publishing weekly posts about specific verification projects and contributions. These will be focused, practical deep dives on individual tools and what I found when I actually verified them.

Monthly, I'll share broader analysis—patterns I'm seeing, skills I'm developing, what's on the horizon for Bitcoin privacy and security.

The first project post drops next week: a full breakdown of verifying Sparrow Wallet v2.3.1, including reproducible build verification and what it means when software is "build verified."

If you care about Bitcoin privacy and security, you deserve more than surface-level content. Let's actually verify these tools together.