Caught in the whirlwind of price volatility and US politics, it’s easy to forget that the Bitcoin tech world had its own breakout earlier this year. Now that the summer has calmed down, the open source stage next week is Bitcoin Nashville This is a good time to explore the progress of the industry.
If you look at this agendaThis year’s impressive lineup should send some signals in the debate surrounding the election. In preparation for what promises to be an absolute marathon, here are some of the topics and talks to watch.
Innovation
Bitcoin developers will be looking to capitalize on the momentum generated by “Bitcoin Season 2” in Nashville as efforts to unlock bitcoin’s programmability remain in focus.
I Previously discussed The arms race around BitVM and other purported Layer 2. The level of excitement around Bitcoin scripting is at an all-time high. Advances made possible by previous soft forks like Taproot and SegWit have led to a variety of experiments motivated by the Ordinals craze. Naturally, conversations are starting to revolve around what happens next.
Unleash your expressive power with OP_CAT
Friday, July 26th, 9:30 AM
Base58 founder and everyone’s favorite Bitcoin educator Niftynei (Lisa) will be trying to set the tone on Friday morning when she chairs a panel on the popular soft fork proposal OP_CAT. The frenzy surrounding the proposed script improvements is unrelenting, with Bitcoin developers becoming increasingly vocal about their affinity for CAT and its superpowers.
I expect my co-panelists, Blockstream Research Director Andrew Poelstra and fellow developers Rjindel and Brandon Black, to make a strong case for versatile scripting improvements.
BitVM: Driving Innovation Without Soft Forks
Friday, July 26th, 10am
The sheer amount of brainpower gathered at this talk cannot be overstated. There’s a reason BitVM has been a hot topic since developer Robin Linus brought it to the stage last year. The proposal managed to attract a large group of developers and thinkers who were fascinated by the possibility of bringing fraud-proofing to Bitcoin.
With no working implementation yet, it feels like a moment of truth for many of the advocates who have been hyping its potential, and maybe a star-studded group of developers can update us on the progress here and tone down the hype a bit.
Privacy is at stake
Bitcoin Privacy Legal Battle: Free Samurai
Friday, July 26th, 2pm
of Arrest The lawsuit filed in April by developers Keon Rodriguez and William Hill sent shockwaves through the Bitcoin industry. Both men have been fixtures in the community for nearly a decade and have been staunch advocates for the privacy rights of Bitcoin users. Now that the dust has settled, the question remains as to how the lawsuit will impact open source developers around the world.
Veteran lawyer Tor Ekeland, who represented Roman Sterlingov in the high-profile “BitcoinFog” mixer case, along with other panelists, spoke about the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Fraudulent cryptocurrency prosecutions and the blockchain surveillance state.“
CISA strengthens Bitcoin privacy
Friday, July 26th, 1:30pm
This one is a bit confusing, but it deserves some attention from technically-minded people. Cross-entry signature aggregationor CISA, has already been proposed in Bitcoin circles for years and was once envisioned as part of the Taproot upgrade.
The basic idea is to allow a transaction to combine signatures from multiple inputs into one, effectively reducing its overall weight and cost. This proposal resurfaced in public discussion a few months ago during the debate over privacy improvements to the Bitcoin protocol. Some have proposed reducing the cost of coordinated multi-input transactions by: CoinJoin This may encourage greater use of privacy tools.
at first Blockstream ResearchDeveloper Fabian Jahr said: Recent Awards Grants from Human Rights Foundation He will be on stage to explore the topic further, along with respected wallet developers Craig Raw of Sparrow Wallet and Jameson Lopp of Casa.
Bitcoin Development
Bitcoin Core Development Status
Saturday, July 27th, 11am
Bitcoin’s reference software implementation is a quiet giant in its industry. Its diverse and hard-working team of developers has historically preferred to stay out of the spotlight. Now, with the tech space heating up and the stakes higher than ever, how are contributors handling the increased attention?
Bitcoin Magazine Exclusive Aaron Van Wildam We reveal the inner workings of this close-knit group and allow contributors like: Ava Chow and March To share your thoughts about the project.
Bitcoin Free Bank
The Ecash debate: What are the trade-offs?
Saturday, July 27th, 3:15pm
I can’t end this article without promoting at least one of the panels I will be participating in. Is it a replacement for a central custodian? A scaling solution? No one seems to agree on the role of ecash in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but if anything, it can no longer be ignored.
Rapid progress on projects such as: Feddy And that Kash The open-source implementation has attracted a fair amount of attention in the last year, with proponents praising its versatility and increased privacy, while critics argue it is no different to the banking system that Bitcoin was built to abolish.
The panel will feature representatives from both sides and is expected to engage in stimulating conversation about the future of Bitcoin’s financial system.
There’s a lot of excitement around the prospect of Bitcoin entering the big leagues, but it’s unclear whether the ecosystem is ready to handle this new surge of interest. As we seek to cross the political divide, it’s important that we continue to support the open source culture that got us this far. Fortunately, the industry seems more ready than ever to take on this challenge. The range of initiatives showcased at the conference is a testament to the mature technical environment enabled by FOSS developers.
