I'm Already Connected to You, I'll Do?

Sergi Delgado joins us to discuss Watchtowers, his prior work in Bitcoin and Lightning privacy, Python vs. Rust and the impact of Eltoo.

We cover:

- Sergi’s prior research

- Mapping Network Topology Research (02:46)

  - TxProbe paper
 - Andrew Miller
 - Coinscope
 - Episode on Address Relay with Martin (04:28)
 - Block-only connections PR by Suhas (07:32)

- An Empirical Analysis of Privacy in the Lightning Network (09:18)

  - Lightning white paper, 2016 (09:48)

  - Security and Privacy of Lightning Network Payments with Uncertain Channel Balances (13:38)

  - Episode with Sergei on Probing

  - Channel Jamming paper (13:50)

  - Episode with Clara and Sergei

- Should we pay for failed payments? (14:19)

  - HTLC withholding vs. HTLC hodling (15:48)

  - Is Lightning flawed when it comes to privacy? (16:32)

- Watchtowers (17:44)

  - Python PoC (21:49)

  - ZmnSCPxj’s writing watchtowers

  - Building on LDK (24:20)

  - Transition to rust (24:45)

- Altruistic towers vs professional services (30:21)

- More privacy considerations in Lightning (34:11)

- Monitoring and reacting paradigm (44:04)

- Storage and Eltoo (50:06)

- Professional tower revenue models - subscription vs. bounties (53:00)