https://fanismichalakis.fr/ Recent content on Fanis Michalakis https://fanismichalakis.fr/favicon-500x500.png https://fanismichalakis.fr/favicon-500x500.png Hugo -- gohugo.io Tue, 27 Jun 2023 18:30:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes42/ Tue, 27 Jun 2023 18:30:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes42/ Hello, and welcome to… Wait! Hold on. Which Latest Strikes issue are we at? That’s right: 42. So get your galactic Michelin Guide ready, because we’re going on a space journey! But as you may know, the outer space is vast and space travel takes a long time, even when using an hyperspace highway. You know what, let’s chat about what happened in the Lightning ecosystem last week. That’ll kill the time for sure. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes41/ Wed, 21 Jun 2023 18:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes41/ Welcome to the 41st issue of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap of everything new and shiny in the Lightning world! Last week was another prime one, with a lot of interesting things happening. So buckle up, prime the engine, put your helmet on, and let’s dive into the stream. Prime time! Ecosystem Is Binance (Finally) On Lightning? It seems like Binance finally set foot in the Lightning Network last week, a month after facing withdrawal issues and announcing work was in progress to enable Lightning withdrawals in Binance. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes40/ Tue, 13 Jun 2023 18:30:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes40/ Welcome to the 40th edition of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap of all the great things happening in the Lightning ecosystem. With 4 issues a month, it means we’ve now been covering the Lightning news together for ten consecutive months. Quite a tumultuous, yet pleasant journey, am I right? And, without further ado, let’s see what happened in Lightning last week! Ecosystem Strike Infrastructure Update Strike now has its own infrastructure both for Bitcoin custody and banking integration. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes39/ Tue, 06 Jun 2023 16:30:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes39/ Dobrý den! Welcome to the 39th issue of Latest Strikes, your opinionated weekly recap of all the great things happening in Lightning. Last week we got Voltage partnering with Google Cloud, a new fancy hardware product, a very welcomed collective initiative and ton of new releases! By the way, before we start, I’ll be in Prague the whole week to attend the BTC Prague conference and some satellite events (such as the dev/hack/day). https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes38/ Wed, 31 May 2023 18:10:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes38/ “What’s happening, hot stuff?”. Well, Jake, hot stuff surely happened last week in the Lightning world! We got a complete wallet working in the browser (well, on signet, but still!), a new advertising model, more adoption, and a lot of updates. Let’s dig in, shall we? Ecosystem Power Of Lightning Summit Nashville will be lit in July! The Power of Lightning Summit will take place at the Bitcoin Park on July 13th and 14th, with an already impressive list of speakers! https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes37/ Sat, 27 May 2023 12:15:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes37/ Γεια σας! Welcome to the 37th edition of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap of everything that happened in the Lightning world last week. I’m currently on vacation in Crete, and hence writing this newsletter between two hikes and a cocktail with a view, hence why it is a bit more concise and comes a bit later than usual. Still, I really hope you’ll like it and find it useful. Let’s find out what happened in Lightning last week! https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes36/ Wed, 17 May 2023 19:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes36/ Kaboom! Lightning never stop, does it? Let’s see what caught my attention last week! Ecosystem Our Companies Ecosystem LightningNetwork+ published one of those nice market map where you can glance at many of the companies working in Lightning right now with only one look. If you’re a Lightning company and would like to be listed there, you can submit your business on the Lightning Market page. Human Rights Foundation Grants 16. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes35/ Tue, 09 May 2023 20:40:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes35/ Ecosystem Lightning For Enterprises MicroStrategy World is an annual conference held by the business intelligence software company MicroStrategy to showcase its latest products and technologies and gather developers, architects, business users, decision makers and data enthusiasts from all around the world. During the 2023 edition that took place last week, a large part of the program was dedicated to Bitcoin and Lightning, and how they can be leveraged in the corporate world. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes34/ Fri, 05 May 2023 12:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes34/ Good morning, Lightning! Last week was an interesting one for Lightning, with a full mempool and some interesting news around submarine swaps, voting mechanisms, and node management. Let’s review what happened! Ecosystem BlueWallet Postpones Sunsetting Of Custodial Offering BlueWallet postponed the date where they’ll stop serving custodial Lightning users to May 31st, giving one more month to users who didn’t move their funds yet. The wallet team also stated that there will still be a way for users to reach out and claim their funds after this date, but better move this capital now than later. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes33/ Tue, 25 Apr 2023 19:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes33/ Helloooo Ja! Welcome to the 33rd issue of Latest Strikes! In case you didn’t know, 33 degrees is the temperature at which water starts to boil in the Newton temperature scale. Do with that piece of information what you wish, but what I can tell you in that the Lightning ecosystem was boiling hot last week. Let’s find out what happened, shall we? Ecosystem Turn You Sats Into Replit Cycles Thanks to kodylow you can now buy Replit cycles (Replit internal “token”) with Lightning. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes32/ Wed, 19 Apr 2023 19:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes32/ Last week was quite THE week for decentralized trading over Lightning and Nostr. Between Civ Kit, n3xb, Mostro and the Nostr Marketplace specification being merged, it seems like there is a big arc developing and further fueling the synergies between Nostr and Lightning. Let’s get into this, and see what other amazing events last week had for us. Ecosystem Awesome LDK Peak Shift published an extensive list of projects using the Lightning Dev Kit (LDK) under the hood. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes31/ Fri, 14 Apr 2023 20:20:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes31/ Annnnd it’s Friday again! We’ll try to not make an habit out of it and come back to a more regular schedule, but I’m hearing later is better that never. Anyway, what did the Lightning world cook for us last week? Mutiny raised funds to develop their privacy focused Lightning wallet, the Price of Anarchy paper got released, and splicing discussions kept the Lightning-Dev mailing list busy. Let’s dive in, shall we? https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes30/ Fri, 07 Apr 2023 18:15:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes30/ Friday it is! Never was a Latest Strikes issue published this late in the week, but here we are at last! With the release of a new major LND version, an innovative way of connecting nostr and Lightning, and Route Blinding finally making it into the specification, last week was another banger! Ecosystem Wavlake Makeover Back in January this year we covered the relaunch of Wavlake, a Lightning-native music streaming platform based on the Value4Value model. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes29/ Thu, 30 Mar 2023 12:30:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes29/ Buongiorno! Welcome to the 29th issue of Latest Strikes, published from Tuscany, Italy, where we’re attending the Tuscany Lightning Summit. But more on that next week. For now, let’s wrap up last week together, from lightning accounting to privacy-preserving LNURL servers! Ecosystem Lightning Accounting BoltObserver published a blog post on Lightning Accounting, more precisely dealing with what a Lightning node’s balance sheet might look like. I think it’s a really interesting exercise, as proper accounting seems to be kind of a blind spot for node operators, both professional and amateurs. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes28/ Wed, 22 Mar 2023 18:30:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes28/ Hello Strikers! Welcome to this 28th issue of Latest Strikes, your weekly dose of the hottest news and updates from the Lightning Network ecosystem. Whether you’re a seasoned Bitcoin veteran or a curious newcomer, we try our best to make this newsletter as useful and approachable as possible, and make it your go-to source for all things Lightning-related. Last week, we’ve had some drama again with Core Lightning’s Descriptiongate, a legal hassle, and a novel proposition for off-chain resizing of Lightning channels. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes27/ Thu, 16 Mar 2023 12:50:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes27/ How you doin’? Last week was a bit less tumultuous than the previous one, but there was still a lot happening. Let’s unfold it together, shall we? Ecosystem Lightning Prisms Gigi published an interesting article defining a novel payment flow called Lightning Prisms. The idea, initially brought up by Andrew Camilleri (aka MrKukks) is to programmatically split the payments sent to an identifier (for example a Lightning Address) between other identifiers, which can be the final recipient of this split or yet another split to another set of identifiers, and so on. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes26/ Thu, 09 Mar 2023 19:10:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes26/ Live long and prosper 🖖 Welcome to the 26th issue of Latest Strikes! That’s right, 26. At the yet unbroken pace of one issue per week, this means that it has been half a year since we started covering the amazing work of Lightning builders all around the world in this columns. Let’s celebrate this half-anniversary in style with the thrilling developments of last week! Ecosystem Qala 🤝 BoltObserver 🤝 Nodl Qala announced a partnership with BoltObserver and nodl, which aims to share and foster good node infrastructure and management practices with Qala’s fellows. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes25/ Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:50:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes25/ Welcome to the 25th edition of Latest Strikes, your weekly dose of Lightning stuff! Last week saw BlueWallet sunsetting their custodial Lightning offering, some developments in the synergies between Lightning and Nostr, as well as some research on payment reliability and wallets usability. Let’s dive in together! Ecosystem Check Splitting App “Settle Up” Adds Lightning Support Settle Up is an app which, as its name conveys, allows you to easily settle debt between friends, roommates or colleagues. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-24/ Tue, 21 Feb 2023 19:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-24/ Howdy! The Lightning-Dev mailing list was quite busy last week, with very interesting discussions! But that’s not it: there were also tons of releases, as well as very good news in the education and adoption fronts. Let’s find out more together! Ecosystem Zion Zion announced a six million dollars raise and launched the V2 of its “Web 5” app that aims to provide a decentralized social network building upon DIDs and leveraging Lightning for payments. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-23/ Tue, 14 Feb 2023 14:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-23/ Pura Vida! Welcome to the 23rd issue of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap of curated Lightning news! Last week was busy, with good ol’ Marty releasing Scrib, the Alby team rolling out a new update AND a benchmark, and many more builders shipping! Grab a snack or a hot drink, and let’s unroll all of this together, shall we? Ecosystem Bounties There is a 2 million sats open bounty for adding NFC receiving support into the Bitcoin Beach POS App. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-22/ Mon, 06 Feb 2023 18:25:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-22/ “Greeting, Lightning wanderer! I hear you’re interested in discovering the latest developments in the mighty kingdgom of Lightning? Follow me, my young friend, as we descend into the valley.” You’re a bit baffled by what just happened, but still decide to follow the strange man. “Do not worry, he tells you, looking over his shoulder. Last week was quite quiet, this will not be a long walk.” Ecosystem THNDR GAMES Launches Leagues THNDR GAMES launched a new feature called “Leagues” in their Solitaire game. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-21/ Tue, 31 Jan 2023 17:30:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-21/ Hello it’s a me! Welcome to the 21st edition of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap in the turmoils of the Lightning world. Last week was a bit like a Super Mario level: full of exciting stuff and with plenty of Goombas to smash! Ecosystem Lightning 🤝 Nostr If you’ve been following up with the Bitcoin ecosystem lately, there are good chances that you’ve heard about nostr, a novel yet simple protocol for exchanging signed text messages in a decentralized fashion. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-20/ Wed, 25 Jan 2023 20:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-20/ Last week was big - again. From Breez releasing its SDK to Wavlake launching a revamped Lightning-powered music streaming platform, there was no time left to get bored! Jump in the stream with us to see what you might have missed! Ecosystem Channel Ninja There’s a new channel recommendation tool in town, called channel.ninja: give it your node’s public key, and it will show you good nodes to connect to in exchange for 1,000 sats. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-19/ Tue, 17 Jan 2023 18:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-19/ Ecosystem Lightningcon Vietnam The LightningCon Vietnam conference will happen in March 23-24, and tickets are for sale! Prices will go up on February 1st, so if you plan to attend, now might be a good time to book! Lightning Addresses In Bottlepay Bottlepay users can now have their own Lightning Address! Users can claim their user@bottlepay.me Lightning Address by updating the app and heading to the settings. Lightning Movie Speaking of cool stuff, this one litterally had me smiling at the UI. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-18/ Tue, 10 Jan 2023 18:30:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-18/ Last week was electric, with some fascinating discussions around inbound fees in Lightning, some cool releases and a new promising LNBits extension. Can you stand the voltage? Ecosystem Alby Pays Peertube Bounty Alby paid the 400,000 sats bounty (funded by German podcast and community Einundzwanzig and an anonymous donor) that was on air for anyone creating a PeerTube plugin allowing viewers to tip content creators. This new plugin let’s you send a one-time payment or stream sats by the minute, straight to the creator’s Lightning Address, with the click of a button1. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-17/ Mon, 02 Jan 2023 19:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-17/ Happy New Year! And welcome for the 17th edition of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap of Lightning news. As you can imagine, last week wasn’t the busiest of the year, but here we are. Take a sit and a cup of coffee or tea, and let’s start this new year together, shall we? Ecosystem 2022 Rewinds The first days of January are for rewinds! Here are a few of them, but I surely didn’t catch them all, so feel free to drop the ones I missed in the comments. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-16/ Tue, 27 Dec 2022 12:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-16/ Ecosystem Plug Any Vending Machine To Lightning René Aaron shared the impressive stuff he’s been working on in the last months: connect any vending machine to the Lightning Network. To do so, he designed a small, easily plugable module that comes with its own screen and can be used by the vending machine to generate a Lightning invoice and display it as a QR code. The product is currently being tested by a bunch of merchants in Europe, but given its plug-and-playiness and the benefits of using Lightning in this types of machines (you get the best money in the world sent directly to your remote BTCPay Server, no need to come around get the bills and coins or to pay payment processors their astounding fees), I’d say I’m quite bullish on this! https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-15/ Wed, 21 Dec 2022 19:15:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-15/ A new LNBits release, a promising vision and builders keeping on building: that was Lightning last week. Read further to find out more, and remember: if you want to receive your weekly recap in your inbox before anyone else, all you have to do is subscribe here. Ready? Steady. Go! Ecosystem Breez Raises $4.5M Breez raised 4.5 million dollars in a seed round led by ego death capital and Entrée Capital, which will help Breez realize it’s ambitious vision of a trustless yet frictionless mobile Lightning experience for all users. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-14/ Tue, 13 Dec 2022 13:30:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-14/ A new point of sale app linked to Bitcoin Beach Wallet, the winners of the LegendsOfLightning tournament announced, faster, easier and cheaper remittances … This week in Lightning was, as usual, busy and well-filled. Read further to find out more, and remember: if you want to receive your weekly recap in your inbox before anyone else, all you have to do is subscribe here. Ready? Let’s dive in! Wallets & Tools Cashu In LNBits Everyone can now easily be their own Chaumian Ecash mint with the integration of Cashu into LNBits. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-13/ Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:50:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-13/ Ecosystem Lightning (And Email) Addresses In Vida Lightning Addresses are now a thing in Vida, and every user gets one (it’s basically <your-username>@vida.page, so for example mine is fanismichalakis@vida.page). But where it gets really interesting is that each Lightning Address is also a paywalled email address. To reach you via email, someone would therefore have to pay the same amount as the one for a one minute call. I really like the idea of merging Lightning and Email addresses (although it won’t make dealing with mailto: and lightning: prefixes easier). https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-12/ Mon, 28 Nov 2022 18:20:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-12/ Wallets & Tools Who Needs A Lightning Wallet When You Have A Browser? Remember the Mutiny Web Wallet we discovered in Lastest Stikes #10? The team behind the project made some significant progress and the perfect video announcement. The web wallet now provides all the features you’d expect from a Lightning wallet: send and receive Bitcoin on-chain, open Lightning channels and transact on Lightning. For example, Ben Carman recorded a demo of him using Munity Web to buy an OP_RETURN transaction on OP_RETURN bot. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-11/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-11/ Ecosystem Grant BitMEX renewed Rene Pickhardt’s grant, extending it for 6 additional months. Rene’s work has been quite influential on how we envision liquidity on the Lightning Network, from a novel routing algorithm (Pickhardt Payment) to better models for liquidity management (why would the optimal state for all channels be a 50/50 repartition of funds?) and their consequences (for example, flow control). Adopting Bitcoin That was quick! The Adopting Bitcoin team already published lots of replays (all of them? https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-10/ Mon, 14 Nov 2022 16:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-10/ Ecosystem Automatic Withdrawals in LN Markets LN Markets released a new feature called “Automatic Withdrawal”. It leverages Lightning Addresses to automatically send the proceeds of a trade to the user’s own wallet when some trading events (takeprofit, stoploss or option exercise) are triggered. On top of instant deposits and withdrawals, this helps users make sure not to leave their funds on the platform any longer than the trade itself. Zero Fee Post Mortem lightningnetwork+ interviewed now retired Zero Fee Routing regarding his experience as one of the biggest node in the network. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-9/ Mon, 07 Nov 2022 10:10:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-9/ Wallets & Tools Blixt Wallet v0.6.0 Hampus Sjöberg released the version 0.6.0 of the Blixt Lightning Wallet! This new version ports the wallet to MacOS, which makes it one of the few Lightning wallets available on desktop. The release also features a number of improvements, such as the “sats” unit being the default, the ability to connect to nodes running behind onion v3 addresses, support for receiving to Taproot addresses or a welcomed change in connection flow: users can now change the Bitcoin node Blixt connects to before creating or restoring their wallet. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-8/ Mon, 31 Oct 2022 16:40:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-8/ Ecosystem Grants The OpenSats initiative has announced two new grant attributions: William Casarin received the “Tip Jar” grant for his work on LNLink, an iOS app to manage one’s Core Lightning node ; while Calle was awarded the “E-Cash” bounty for his work on Cashu, a Lightning-enabled Chaumian ecash implementation. The non profit OpenSats initiative created 3 special Lighting grants back in December 2021, funded by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and Strike, awarding bounties to open source projects building wallets and tools providing useful features for dissidents worldwide. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-7/ Sun, 23 Oct 2022 21:30:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-7/ Ecosystem Developer Grants This week we saw two new grants going to Lightning builders! Superlunar issued a grant to Dusty Daemin to support his work on Lightning, and notably splicing. Okcoin is now sponsoring Johns Beharry’s work of promoting Lightning projects and experiments through BoltFun. Legends Of Lightning Update Speaking of BoltFun, I thought it would be interesting to see how the LegendsOfLightning tournament has evolved since we last took a look. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-6/ Sun, 16 Oct 2022 19:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-6/ Specs & Implems Da Bug (do not eat it) This week was the scene of a fun (and overall not so harmful) bug in LND. The bug came from btcd, a Bitcoin library on which LND relies to parse new blocks. The library still had a reminiscence of SegWit V0, in the form of a check on the witness size (eg size of signatures, although it’s not strictly equivalent) of Bitcoin transactions. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-5/ Sun, 09 Oct 2022 15:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-5/ Geia sas! Welcome to this 5th issue of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap of what’s new in the Lightning realm. Zip up your jacket, tuck your chin into the collar, and enter the storm with me! Wallets & Tools Alby Release (and Nostr soon) The Alby team landed a new release, which improves the LNBits integration and allows users to connect from their own LNDHub instance (or the instance of a friend), and not just your BlueWallet Lightning account. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-4/ Sun, 02 Oct 2022 23:30:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-4/ Yo! Welcome to this 4th edition of Latest Strikes, your weekly recap of Lightning news. Grab a drink, and let’s dive in! Ecosystem Some Numbers for the Nerds Kevin Rooke opened the ball of statistics this week with an interesting comparison of exchange nodes capacity and its evolution over the last 30 days. We can see that the 13 exchanges considered in this analysis saw a collective increase of their public capacity of 349 BTC, which is a 20% increase! https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-3/ Mon, 26 Sep 2022 12:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-3/ Sup! Welcome to this new edition of Latests Strikes, your weekly recap of what the cool kids talk about when they discuss the Lightning Network. Fasten your seatbelt and put on your helmet as we drive irresponsibly fast into the storm! Ecosystem BitGo goes long on Lightning Crypto custodian BitGo unveiled the integration of Lightning into their custody products. Basically, BitGo will take care of everything on behalf of their customer, which can replace all the Lightning stuff with API calls. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-2/ Sun, 18 Sep 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-2/ Howdy! Welcome to this second edition of Lightning Strikes, your weekly recap of new shiny things in the world of Lightning. LFG! Ecosystem LN Markets Release LN Markets published a new release, which includes the lifting of trading limits from 2 million sats to 10 million (eg 0.1 BTC), Lightning Node Connect support (where you can interact with your LND node directly from the browser), new multilanguage support (starting with Spanish and French), as well as free internal transfers between LN Markets users and the (here comes the controversy) adoption of the Sat Symbol (aka kebab-symbol). https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-1/ Sun, 11 Sep 2022 21:32:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/latest-strikes-1/ Hello there, and welcome to this first edition of Latest Strikes, a brief weekly recap of what’s new in the Lightning world. Buckle up! Wallets & Tools Alby Alby announced their new release (v1.15.O). If you’re interested in the details of the release, you can read their Twitter thread or the release notes. In a few worlds: Alby now works in the Tor Browser, and will be even better than before at catching Lightning links such as LNURL or invoices. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/fullrbf/ Tue, 12 Jul 2022 19:00:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/fullrbf/ The ability for users to alter their transactions while they are still waiting for confirmation has considerably better the UX of using Bitcoin, as it allows users to unstuck transactions that would otherwise have taken weeks to process because of too small fees, or even to “cancel” a transaction they made by mistake. Today’s mechanism for doing so, called Opt-in RBF, relies on the user’s transaction signaling that it can be replaced. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/on-pow-and-pos/ Wed, 30 Mar 2022 09:55:00 +0200 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/on-pow-and-pos/ The desire to write this article came to me from the recent publication of two papers1 by Pr. Jean-Paul Delahaye, professor emeritus at the University of Lille 1 and researcher at the Centre de recherche en informatique, signal et automatique of Lille (CNRS/Centrale Lille Institut/University of Lille). However, I hesitated for a long time before deciding to do it. Indeed, I had the impression that counter-arguments to those of Pr. Delahaye already existed in profusion, freely accessible for those who would take the trouble to look for them. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/the-empire-of-tyranny/ Tue, 01 Mar 2022 22:30:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/the-empire-of-tyranny/ Ô Tyranny! Abhorred your not so distant shores Always expanding like the flower of blood That expands through the injury of a Fallen Gaining land on our salted sea of Freedom Dried up by the forever lasting star of Evil. And as the water dries, only remains the salt - eternal ore for our extinguished dreams. Yet a proverb spreads There would be a water that never dries An acidic water, unpleasant and hard to drink https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/peeling-the-onion/ Thu, 17 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/peeling-the-onion/ This article is the second (out of two) concerning Onion Routing. Therefore, it is recommended to read the first article before this one In a previous article I went into some details as to how Onion Routing allows payments to be processed accross the Lightning Network in a quite privacy preserving manner. More precisely, we saw how the identities of the emitter and the receiver of a payment are hidden via the use of successive layers of encryption in the messages that nodes exchange about a payment. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/onion-routing/ Wed, 09 Feb 2022 07:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/onion-routing/ This article is the first (out of two) concerning Onion Routing. It is also the first of the Routing Series, where I'll try to cover in depth how routing works in the Lightning Network, and how it could work differently (ever heard this story about an ant jumping on a trampoline?). This article is an introduction to Onion Routing, and offers a "high level" view of how it works. The second article will go deeper into the inner workings of Onion Routing in the Lightning Network. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/aopp/ Fri, 28 Jan 2022 08:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/aopp/ A (heated) discussion on a specific piece of regulation and its application has quickly spread through Bitcoin Twitter in the last hours, following a tweet by shaquille o’atmeal (@crypt0e): https://t.co/uKQJ7r3uUn It's more than just Trezor: pic.twitter.com/6fOn2LRTy3 — shaquille o'atmeal (@crypt0e) January 27, 2022 I found the topic interesting enough to wrap up my thoughts on the matter in a short article. I hope it will also help the reader quickly get grasp of what is at stake here. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/ptlcs/ Sat, 15 Jan 2022 12:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/ptlcs/ If the Lightning Network is so useful today, it is in great part thanks to the fact that payments can be routed inside the network: if Alice wants to pay Bob, it isn’t necessary that she has a direct channel with him. Instead, she can have a channel with Carol and, if Carol has a channel with Bob, use Carol’s channel to reach Bob. With this mechanism arises a new question: how can such payments, that rely on the benevolence of third parties such as Carol, be achieved in a trustless way? https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/anchor-outputs/ Mon, 03 Jan 2022 22:00:00 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/anchor-outputs/ The last two “long” articles of this blog were dedicated to special kinds of Lightning channels that seek, each in their own way, to enhance the user experience on the Lightning Network. This week, we will dive into anchor outputs, which aim to ensure channel closings are settled quicly, even in the case of a force close. This article will go into details as to how Lightning works in this regard, what are the issues and how anchor outputs can solve them. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/qrcode/ Sat, 18 Dec 2021 22:10:59 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/qrcode/ Black squares on a white background You are either freedom or subjection Message to come or prison of paper Strange chessboard without pawn or king Deceitful sésame, Or key to millions. Each point on this map is a nail in the coffin We always bury something. In the end we are all smiths, All cartographers, all kings and pawns And it’s up to us to ignore the jesters And their black squares on a white background https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/bitcoin-and-mesh-networking/ Fri, 17 Dec 2021 21:53:31 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/bitcoin-and-mesh-networking/ I am increasingly convinced that the future of Bitcoin (at least, its short term future) lies in mesh networking. Intro Mesh networks are networks were nodes connect to one another dynamically and without any hierarchy. There is no central authority, every node is connected to other nodes with which it exchanges data. Bitcoin already looks a lot like a mesh network at the protocol level. Consider transactions or blocks propagation for example. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/millisatoshis/ Thu, 16 Dec 2021 15:59:38 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/millisatoshis/ Today’s post was inspired by this very good question from @antward on Twitter: Millisats? I thought sats was the smallest unit? — Larix Lynx ⚡️ (@DigitaltGuld) December 15, 2021 As you can see, I tried to give him a synthetic answer, but then I thought to myself: why not devote today’s short piece to this question? So here we are. 1 millisat = 0.001 sat That’s the shortest answer one could give. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/mare-a-memoire/ Wed, 15 Dec 2021 22:58:59 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/mare-a-memoire/ A wave passes and fills the pool Thousands of transactions accumulate Little wriggling, self-centered fish Just waiting to be caught With a powerful stroke of the net A Mentat catches them and gathers them in a basket. Carrying the basket at eye level He analyzes, thinks, weighs He computes and calculates In a flash of lucidity he guesses their true name The one that, revealed, will make all the others cry out: https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/facebook-metaverse-and-libra/ Tue, 14 Dec 2021 22:33:23 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/facebook-metaverse-and-libra/ One of our most prominent voices in the Bitcoin ecosystem in France is Jacques Favier. Having been a historian before becoming a Bitcoiner, Jacques often has a very interesting point of view on many aspects of the revolution we’re seeing happen before our eyes. When asked about what money is, Jacques often answers that the moneyness of any good cannot be analysed separately from the space in which this good is presumably used as money. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/nfc-not-nft/ Mon, 13 Dec 2021 21:21:33 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/nfc-not-nft/ NFC seems to be all over Bitcoin Twitter recently, between Square/Spiral annoucement of a NFC enabled hardware wallet, Coinkite teasing their Satscard and Coin Corner messing around with hilarious NFC Lightning payment demos. What the hell is NFC? NFC stants for Near Field Communication. It leverages one of the most elegant physical phenomenon Mother Nature gave us1 to enable communication between two devices that are very close to each other. A varying current in one circuit creates a magnetic field which in turn induces a current in the other circuit. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/what-are-hosted-channels/ Sun, 12 Dec 2021 12:01:04 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/what-are-hosted-channels/ Last week’s article dealt with Turbo Channels. Today, I’ll cover Hosted Channels, another kind of channels that seek to enhance the Lightning channels UX while staying in line with the specification and mitigating the required tradeoffs. Not on-chain enforceable channels The big difference between a hosted channel and a regular Lightning channel is that the former is not enforceable on-chain, simply because there is no channel opening transaction to spend from. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/using-bitcoin-opreturn-for-command-and-control/ Sat, 11 Dec 2021 18:47:17 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/using-bitcoin-opreturn-for-command-and-control/ Today’s article is a fun one. The story it describes is not new, but it has resurfaced recently following a blog post by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG). A story of how a group of criminals has used (and, to the extent to what we know, still uses) Bitcoin in a quite unexpected way: to send data to their malware. Its name was Glupteba Quoting Google, Glupteba is “known to steal user credentials and cookies, mine cryptocurrencies on infected hosts, deploy and operate proxy components targeting Windows systems and IoT devices”. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/chainalysis-to-launch-lightning-network-support/ Fri, 10 Dec 2021 22:40:13 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/chainalysis-to-launch-lightning-network-support/ Chainalysis announced today that they are going to lauch support for Lightning Network transaction monitoring. This new feature would be integrated into KYT (Know Your Transaction), one of the main products of Chainalysis that supposedly helps businesses and services stay in line with regulation by providing them with transaction monitoring and traceability tools. In its blog post, the company didn’t detail how they plan on monitoring transactions on the Lightning Network. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/how-a-state-can-subvert-bitcoin/ Thu, 09 Dec 2021 18:47:13 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/how-a-state-can-subvert-bitcoin/ This post contains my first thoughts following the reading of FX Thoorens’ article How a state can hack Bitcoin. I recommend giving this one a read first. In his article, FX distinguishes between two very different attack vectors on Bitcoin: the mathematical part of the protocol the human factor. FX then highlights how the mathematical part is an unpreignable Citadel, but how the human constituents of the network still are very frail blockhouses. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/dancing-forbidden/ Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:46:48 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/dancing-forbidden/ Today, I sent the equivalent of several thousands of dollars (not mine) in Bitcoin. I did not ask for permission. Nobody could stop me from doing it. On Friday, I won’t be allowed to dance in bars and restaurants. ⚡🇫🇷FLASH - Il sera interdit de danser dans les bars et restaurants en France à partir de vendredi matin jusqu'au 6 janvier inclus. (décret) — Brèves de presse (@Brevesdepresse) December 8, 2021 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/bitwage-first-salary-payment-through-lightning/ Tue, 07 Dec 2021 20:21:36 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/bitwage-first-salary-payment-through-lightning/ Bitwage announced today that it conducted the first ever salary payment over the Lightning Network. We're thrilled to announce that we have successfully conducted the world's first salary payment through Lightning! Our recipients were @bernard_parah and @alexcrognale. Special thanks to everyone who helped make this happen: @walletofsatoshi, @voltage_cloud, and @acinq_co. pic.twitter.com/lIra282ISf — Bitwage (@Bitwage) December 6, 2021 I personnaly found the news quite interesting, because the idea of getting paid, not only in Bitcoin, but also on the Lightning Network, opens for some intriguing considerations. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/une-foret-qui-pousse/ Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:54:57 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/une-foret-qui-pousse/ A forest grows. Some shrubs, frail and ignored, bloom in the calm silence of a remote place. The forest grows. The trees have grown well. Their trunk, already strong, projects them towards the sky. Each tree has its natural domain. Its neighbors protect it from the wind, their roots help to strengthen the earth. If one of them weakens, the others feed it until it recovers. The forest is established now. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/turbo-channels/ Sat, 04 Dec 2021 17:26:13 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/turbo-channels/ Turbo channels have been around since at least 2 years now, but they remain quite largely misunderstood among the community. Information about them are available but a bit scattered. The purpose of this post is to bring them together and provide a comprehensive view on this subject. 0-conf channels Turbo channels are basically 0-confirmation channels, which means the channel can be used before the channel opening transaction get mined in a Bitcoin block. https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/incipit/ Sat, 04 Dec 2021 10:59:39 +0100 https://fanismichalakis.fr/posts/incipit/ This new website was published on block 712542 (hash 000000000000000000056abb403b5c9570a158a6fb06733f0ce7703e69693c9d). https://fanismichalakis.fr/support-me/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://fanismichalakis.fr/support-me/ support me