Skip to content

Scaling Bitcoin: The Rise of the Lightning Network

Talk Lisa Nifut

Lisa Nifut discusses Bitcoin scaling through the Lightning Network, a layer-2 protocol solution analogous to Ethereum L2s. The talk covers the history and development of Lightning Network technology, Nifut's personal journey in protocol improvement work, and the entrepreneurial process of identifying and implementing protocol upgrades.

Related resources

Talk

Guest Talk with Daniel Bashir | A Survey of AI for the Protocol-Minded

Daniel Bashir, a machine learning engineer at AWS and host of the Gradient podcast, surveys the intersection of AI and protocols across multiple levels—from funding to ML engineering to research to regulation. He aims to introduce key technologies, conversations, and debates in AI while identifying current protocols that can be understood through a protocol-mindset lens.

ai-regulation guest-talks information-theory

Daniel Bashir

Talk

Guest Talk with Renee DiResta | A Troll's Guide to the Internet

Renee DiResta discusses human behavior in the digital built environment, arguing that the internet is no longer a wild space but rather a constructed ecosystem where users adapt their behaviors—similar to how animals adapt to urban environments. DiResta draws on her decade-plus of research studying digital manipulation tactics, algorithmic amplification, and coordinated networks (exemplified by her work on anti-vaccine movements) to frame online phenomena as products of designed systems rather than natural behavior.

algorithmic-feeds coordinated-networks digital-built-environment

Renee DiResta

Paper

Addressing

This paper examines addressing schemes in computing systems, from physical memory addresses to hierarchical file organization and internet URLs, establishing how different protocols and structures require distinct addressing mechanisms to navigate data storage and retrieval. The authors argue that computers must support multiple addressing paradigms that work seamlessly together, drawing analogies between digital addressing and physical-world location systems.

blockchain infrastructure protocols

Tim Beiko, Mario Havel