Friday, November 19th 2021 - Issue #1115

The transition from HTLCs to PTLCs

Like it or love it, this abbreviated week of rags from this dark corner of the Internet is hyper-focused on Taproot activation. On Monday, I laid out my thesis that Taproot is a catalyst that will take Jevons Paradox into a higher gear within the Bitcoin protocol. Today, I'd like to get away from my wacky theories and highlight people much smarter than me who are actively working to leverage the benefits of Taproot to improve the Bitcoin protocol and the layers above it.

As we've discussed many times in this rag, Taproot activation enables bitcoiners to open channels on the Lightning Network in a new way by leveraging Point Time Locked Contracts (PTLCs) instead of Hash Time Locked Contracts (HTLCs). The transition from HTLCs to PTLCs will bring with it privacy and efficiency gains, which everyone wants. However, before we're able to realize the benefits from a transition, bitcoiners working on and using the Lightning network need to figure out how to transition. Up until recently, this has been an unanswered question that many have been loosely brainstorming about off the record.

Well, last month a number of developers working on the Lightning Network met in Zurich to discuss the current state of the network and ways in which they can continue to improve it. Luckily for us Olaoluwa Osuntokun, CTO of Lightning Labs, took detailed meeting minutes and shared those on the lightning-dev mailing list. A large focus of the discussions was on how to best transition from HTLCs to PTLCs. Above are a couple of snippets from Olaoluwa's notes which give a high level synopsis of two different approaches. As of right now developers are weighing two different approaches; a "big bang" transition where everyone transitions at once, and a slow iterative transition that happens in chunks over time.

Off the bat, I am partial to the iterative process. In my opinion, the "big bang" transition is preferable but not very practical as it seems like it would be extremely hard to coordinate every node operator at once. The iterative route seems more practical but also comes with the risk of falling prey to second-system syndrome.

After roughly twenty four hours of contemplation on this, this is where I currently stand. This is subject to change as more information and context comes to light. At the very least, I am extremely happy these discussions are being had and ideas are coming to the surface. This is only the beginning of the conversation and I look forward to watching it evolve to a point that produces a viable solution.

What do you think?

Final thought...

Bill Burr is a don.

Enjoy your weekend, freaks.

Share

Forward

Hope you enjoyed today's issue. If you have any friends that are looking to find out more about Bitcoin have them sign up for this newsletter here:

Get Ƀent

Ƀent noun 1. direction taken, as by one's interests; inclination.

Thanks for reading Marty's Ƀent, a daily newsletter containing all the information I found interesting in the Bitcoin world in the last 24 hours.

Marty's Ƀent - November 19th, 2021 - Issue #1115

The transition from HTLCs to PTLCs

Older messages

Marty's Ƀent - November 18th, 2021 - Issue #1114

Marty's Ƀent - November 15th, 2021 - Issue #1113

The Sat Standard - Bitcoin Weekly - Nov 13 2021

Marty's Ƀent - November 12th, 2021 - Issue #1112

Marty's Ƀent - November 11th, 2021 - Issue #1111

You Might Also Like

Ripple warns of deepfake scams amid XRP price surge

Understanding Staking Yields and Economics on Ethereum & Solana

WuBlockchain x Vitalik, Part 1: Ethereum's China Story, Russia-Ukraine War, and BCH's Big Block Concept

Enron is back to launch crypto token focused on solving the energy crisis

VC Monthly Report for Nov, Sets 13-Month Low in Funding Number and Amount

AI Agents Continues To Flourish As Numerous Tokens Soar

📈 Stablecoin market capitalisation hits an all-time high; Crypto.com to be the title sponsor for the upcoming Cry…

US influence over Bitcoin grows with Trump victory

Asia's weekly TOP10 crypto news (Nov 25 to Dec 1)

Analyst warns of ‘leverage driven pump’ as XRP price soars