Caught up in the storm of price action and American politics, it's easy to forget that the Bitcoin tech landscape had its own blowout earlier this year. Now that things have calmed down over the summer, the Open-Source Stage will take place next week at Bitcoin Nashville It is a good opportunity to assess the progress of the industry.
Looking at this diaryThis year's extensive programming should be able to provide some direction amid the election chatter. To prepare for what promises to be an absolutely marathon event, I've highlighted a handful of topics and talks to keep an eye on.
Technical innovation
Bitcoin developers will look to build on the momentum generated around “Bitcoin Season 2” in Nashville, as the focus will continue to be on efforts to unlock Bitcoin’s programmability.
Yo Already discussed above The arms race for all things BitVM and other supposed layer 2s. The level of excitement around Bitcoin scripts has never been higher. The progress enabled by previous soft forks like Taproot and SegWit has led to various experiments, most motivated by the ordinal craze. Naturally, the conversation has started to turn to what comes next.
Unlocking Expressiveness with OP_CAT
Friday, July 26th. 9:30 AM
Base58 founder and everyone’s favorite Bitcoin educator, Niftynei (Lisa), will look to set the tone on Friday morning by chairing a panel on the popular OP_CAT soft fork proposal. The excitement around the script improvement proposal has not waned, and Bitcoin developers have been increasingly outspoken about their affinity for CAT and its superpowers.
I expect co-panelists Andrew Poelstra, Director of Research at Blockstream, and developers Rjindel and Brandon Black to make a strong case for the versatile script enhancement.
BitVM: Driving innovation without a soft fork
Friday, July 26th. 10:00 a.m.
It’s hard to overstate the sheer amount of brainpower that has been gathered at this talk. There’s a reason BitVM has been the topic of conversation ever since developer Robin Linus introduced it last year. The proposal has managed to attract an impressive crowd of developers and thinkers fascinated by the prospect of bringing fraud protection to Bitcoin.
Without a working implementation yet, it also seems like it's time for some of its backers, who have been talking a lot about its potential. The star-studded group of developers should be able to update us on progress and perhaps reduce the hype a bit.
Privacy at stake
Bitcoin's legal battle for privacy: Free Samurai
Friday, July 26. 2:00 p.m.
He arrest The case of developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill in April sent shockwaves through the Bitcoin industry. Both men, who had been members of the community for nearly a decade, had been ardent advocates for Bitcoin users’ rights to privacy. Now that the dust has settled, questions remain about the case’s implications for open source developers around the world.
Veteran attorney Tor Ekeland, who represented Roman Sterlingov in the high-profile “Bitcoin fog” case, will join other panelists to discuss the “Abusive Cryptocurrency Prosecutions and the Blockchain Surveillance State“
Making Bitcoin More Private with CISA
Friday, July 26. 1:30 p.m.
This one is a bit more obscure but will probably be worth the attention of more technically minded people. Aggregating signatures between entriesor CISA, is a proposal that has been floating around Bitcoin circles for many years and was once conceived as part of the Taproot upgrade.
The general idea is to allow transactions to combine signatures from multiple inputs into a single one, effectively reducing their overall weight and therefore their cost. The proposal re-emerged in public discourse a few months ago in the context of debates over much-needed privacy improvements to the Bitcoin protocol. Some have suggested that reducing the cost of collaborative multi-input transactions such as union of currencies It could encourage greater use of privacy tools.
Originally headed by Blockstream ResearchDeveloper Fabian Jahr was Recently awarded a grant from the Human Rights Foundation to investigate further on the topic. Joining him on stage will be respected wallet developers Craig Raw of Sparrow Wallet and Jameson Lopp of Casa.
Bitcoin Development
The state of Bitcoin Core development
Saturday, July 27th. 11:00 a.m.
Bitcoin’s benchmark software implementation is the quiet giant of this industry. The diverse and diligent team of developers has historically preferred to stay out of the spotlight. Now that the technical space is heating up and the stakes are higher than ever, how are its contributors coping with the increased attention?
Bitcoin's own magazine Aaron Van Wirdum We will try to elucidate the inner workings of this close-knit group and allow collaborators like Ava Chow and Bat to share their thoughts on the project.
Free banking with Bitcoin
Debate on electronic cash: what are the advantages and disadvantages?
Saturday, July 27. 3:15 p.m.
I couldn’t end this article without promoting at least one of the panels I’ll be participating in. Is it a replacement for centralized custodians? Is it a scaling solution? No one seems to agree on the role of ecash in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but in any case, it can no longer be ignored.
The rapid progress of projects such as Fed. and the Cocoa The open-source implementation has gained a significant amount of attention over the past year. Proponents celebrate its versatility and privacy gains, while detractors claim it is no different from the banking system that Bitcoin was designed to render obsolete.
Both sides will be represented on the panel, which is shaping up to be a fascinating conversation about the future of the Bitcoin financial system.
There is a lot of excitement at the prospect of Bitcoin entering the big leagues, but it is difficult to know whether the ecosystem is ready to accommodate this new influx of interest. Now that we are crossing the political chasm, it is crucial to continue supporting the open source culture that got us here. Fortunately, the industry has never seemed more ready to meet this challenge. The diversity of initiatives on display at the conference is a testament to the maturing technical environment made possible by FOSS developers.
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