Core Developer Bryan Bishop on Building Bitcoin
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“There are bugs in Bitcoin, some that we know about and some that we don’t. Of the ones that we know about, not all of them are public knowledge.”
Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Friday 14th Dec, 2018
Project: Bitcoin
Role: Core Developer
Bitcoin may be the most important software project of our lifetime. A decentralised protocol, storing $billions in value, potentially $trillions in the future, yet this software is supported and developed by a distributed, volunteer group of developers.
How does this group of developers make decisions? What upgrades are important? Who gets to contribute to Bitcoin? How is code reviewed and pushed live? How are bugs reported and handled?
There are so many important questions that surround the development of Bitcoin and protection of the protocol, some of it shrouded in mystery. In this interview, I talk with Core Developer, Bryan Bishop about how developers work on Bitcoin. We discuss how ideas go from concept to code, testing procedures and the future of Bitcoin.
TIMESTAMPS
00.03.38: Intro and welcome
00.04.28: Brian’s background and why he became a Bitcoin developer
00.07.59: How building Bitcoin compares to other software development
00.09.16: How developer coordinate
00.11.51: Pre and post Satoshi development
00.13.31: Technicals of Bitcoin
00.15.11: How ideas go from proposal to development
00.18.01: What is consensus and how changes are made
00.27.31: Different types of forks
00.33.48: Bugs within Bitcoin and how they are handled
00.35.58: Problems with the structure of the Bitcoin protocol
00.41.28: Update on Lightning Network
00.45.19: Fungibility
00.49.53: The future of Bitcoin
00.55.40: How non-technical people can support Bitcoin
00.55.55: How to stay in touch with Bryan
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SPONSORS
BlockFi
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Token Talk Podcast
This week I have been listening to the Wing VC podcast - Token Talk with Zach Dewitt. It is a more general Crypto podcast but specifically I really enjoyed their episodes with:
Thomas France, co-founder of ledger who discussed how he wants to make it easier for average users
Joshua Stein from Harbor - discussing building a decentralized, blockchain-based protocol for issuing and trading securities
It is a great podcast with solid interviews and if you want to find the podcast now head over to wing.vc/podcast or find it on iTunes or Spotify.
Patron Sponsors
And a big thank you to Elite Crypto Consulting - Your Personalised Trading Teacher, for becoming my first Patron Sponsor.
SHOW NOTES
Connect with Bryan:
On LinkedIn
On GitHub
On Libraries.io
His website: http://heybryan.org/
His event transcriptions
Connect with Bitcoin Core:
Website: https://bitcoincore.org/
On Twitter
On GitHub
Presentations by Bryan:
Mentioned in the interview:
Other relevant WBD podcasts:
WBD053: Grin's Michael Cordner aka Yeastplume on Implementing Mimblewimble
WBD037: Jimmy Song on the Game Theory of Bitcoin Attacks and why Proof of Work Needs to be Expensive
WBD030: Teaching C# Developers to Integrate Bitcoin within their Applications with Vortex
WBD018: Bitcoin Scaling and Lightning Network with Jameson Lopp
THANKS
A big thanks to my WBD Maximalist Patrons for helping support the show: JP Petit, Logan Shultz, Seb Walhain, Steve Foster, Tony, Gordon Gould, David Burlington, Jesse Powell, Beam and Wiel Menger.
