Outcomes from Lightning Protocol Summit in Milan

Following Scaling Bitcoin in Milan, the implementers of multiple lightning protocol systems (including Blockstream) held a summit to nail down a specification so we can all work together to bring instant, scalable microtransaction to Bitcoin.

“On October 10th and 11th, following Scaling Bitcoin Milan, participants implementing the Bitcoin Lightning Network produced a general outline for agreement on the Lightning Network protocol scope and specification. Over the past year, the Lightning community has been working on exploring the problem space and writing implementations, creating many Lightning channels and transactions on the Bitcoin Test Network. This meeting is a culmination of these efforts, across many companies within the Bitcoin ecosystem, and finalizing the implementations towards protocol compatibility and releases in the coming weeks and months.”

The success of the summit marks the end of the early exploratory phase and the beginning of the production phase of the Lightning network.

Over a dozen Lightning system developers participated in the summit, including representatives from ACINQ, Amiko Pay, Bcoin/Purse.io, Bitfury, Blockstream, and Lightning Labs. Decisions ranged from default port number, wire formats, commitment hash derivation, and even to the choice of our theme song!

You can read the joint summary here. We expect the first draft spec to be published for comment within a few weeks.

In related news, Blockstream’s own c-lightning project is about to release version 0.5, following which 0.6 will be committed to meeting the new specification. We’ll post additional information soon!