Since Gavin Andresen’s proposal to increase the Bitcoin block size, how Bitcoin can scale to accommodate higher transaction volumes has been heatedly debated among developers. One of the most promising long-term options to allow near infinite scalability is the Lightning Network. Joseph Poon and , the co-authors of the whitepaper, joined us for a discussion of scalability and how the lightning network could allow massive numbers of off-chain transaction in a trustless way. Topics covered in this episode: Why Bitcoin has a scalability problem How payment channels work and the architecture of the Lightning Network Why the Lightning Network would still require a block size increase How transaction fees would work in the Lightning Network How the Bitcoin blockchain would take on a court-like function to ensure honest off-chain behavior The risks and downsides to the Lightning Network Episode links: Gavin Andresen - Why Increasing the Block Size is Urgent Mike Hearn - The Capacity Cliff Mike Hearn - Crash Landing Rusty Russell - Series on the Lightning Network Part 1 Rusty Russell - Series on the Lightning Network Part 2 Rusty Russell - Series on the Lightning Network Part 3 Rusty Russell - Series on the Lightning Network Part 4 Lightning Network Whitepaper Lightning Network website This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/080

The idea of using the Bitcoin blockchain to represent and track the ownership of off-chain assets is almost as old as Bitcoin itself. One of the startups that is pursuing this vision is Berlin-based Ascribe, which allows creators to register (‘ascribe’), transfer and archive digital art. Ascribe CTO joined us for a fascinating discussion of their ambitious goals to enable a so-far elusive secondary market for digital art, help creators monetize their work and ultimately retrofit an entire ownership layer to the internet. Topics covered in this episode: Why ownership in the internet is broken How Ascribe wants to realize the vision of Project Xanadu of an internet with bi-directional links and baked-in copyrights How the SPOOL (Secure Public Online Ownership Ledger) protocol works The components of the Ascribe tech stack How Ascribe will crawl and similarity-match the entire internet to retrofit an internet of ownership Why Ascribe focuses first on the digital art market Episode links: Ascribe SPOOL Protocol Cointemporary Project Xanadu Wikipedia Rewiring the Internet for Ownership with Big Data and Blockchains Slides This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/078