Welcome to Blockstream Talk. Today's conversation is with Rusty Russell, a senior Lightning Network Developer at Blockstream. Rusty is an OG contributor to open-source software and was tasked with helping transition the Lightning Network from an academic paper to a real world payment protocol seven years ago when he joined Blockstream. Lightning Network capacity is now up around five thousand bitcoin, pretty close to an all time high despite recent price weakness. Rusty highlights, reasons for growth, some new applications and also gives us a sneak peek into new features expected to be rolled out in the coming months.
Elements Project
Follow Blockstream on Nostr:
npub1jg552aulj07skd6e7y2hu0vl5g8nl5jvfw8jhn6jpjk0vjd0waksvl6n8n
01:27 Starting work on Lightning at Blockstream
03:44 Lightning Network global adoption
04:46 Work on Bolt12 Lightning spec
10:41 Factors driving Lightning adoption
15:15 Bookkeeping with Core Lightning
21:31 Lightning Network unlocking micropayments
23:45 Integrating Lightning into Blockstream Green
26:02 Lightning wallet recommendations
28:48 Thoughts on El Salvador Bitcoin and Lightning adoption
32:55 Working in the open-source software space
38:43 Comparing Bitcoin to Linux
47:33 Exciting things coming to Lightning