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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 Tadge Dryja, 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 included:

- 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

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Gavin Andresen - Why Increasing the Block Size is Urgent: http://bit.ly/1Blccfj

- Mike Hearn - The Capacity Cliff: http://bit.ly/1Ap8NRP

- Mike Hearn - Crash Landing: http://bit.ly/1HrOhNd

- Rusty Russell - Series on the Lightning Network Parts 1-4: http://bit.ly/1F54zKo, http://bit.ly/1Ap7LVQ, http://bit.ly/1Ap7Pos, http://bit.ly/1PH8xnM

- Lightning Network Whitepaper: http://bit.ly/1Symmnu

- Lightning Network website: http://bit.ly/1Ap8Xsj

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Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/080

YouTube: https://youtu.be/fBS_ieDwQ9k

Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.

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