Rusty Russell, a well known and respected Bitcoin Lightning developer at Blockstream  joins me in this episode. We talk about his article, The Three Economic Eras of Bitcoin, and discuss the Lightning Network for Bitcoin. Lastly, Rusty draws from his prior experience as a Linux kernel developer to contrast Linux development with Bitcoin and Lightning development practices and culture.

Specific topics include:

• The economic phases Bitcoin will go through
• Fee estimation
• The coming Bitcoin Civil War and how it may be fought in a similar fashion to the earlier Segwit2X debate
• Background on Lightning Network (great intro for newbies on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network)
• C-Lightning, the Blockstream Lightning software
• Coming changes to the Lightning spec e.g. splicing, fee estimation, AMP, eltoo
• Rusty’s thoughts on Lightning Network Reference Rate
• Linux development culture similarities and differences with Bitcoin & Lightning development culture

Rusty Links:

• Article Discussed: The Three Economic Eras of Bitcoin
• Rusty’s Twitter: @rusty_twit
• Rusty’s talk: Future Technological Directions in Bitcoin
• Blockstream – Elements Project / Lightning
• Lightning.Network Primer

Technical links:

• Dual Funding
• C-Lightning v0.6.1
• C-Lightning command: Getroute
• Lightning Charge
• Spark

Prior SLP episodes referenced in this podcast episode:

• SLP9 with Bryan Vu – Lightning Labs
• SLP7 with Nik Bhatia – LNRR

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