The mission of the Bolt-A-Thon is to foster the global development of the Lightning Network by hosting virtual conferences and hackathons. By hosting it online, we are able to make the top Lightning Network developers available to anyone in the world through speaker sessions. We are also able to create opportunities for hackers to experiment building on Bitcoin’s layer two technology.
Our first ever Bolt-A-thon was hosted on April 5-7, 2019 and we were blown away by the response. We had 300+ tickets sold, 14 Lightning Network projects submitted, and participants from all over the world including Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Nigeria, and the United States. One of the winners of the Bolt-A-Thon, BottlePay, even went on to raise $2 MM!
We invite you to join us for the second ever Bolt-A-thon and take part of the Lightning revolution. It will be a three-day hacking event including a single day of speaker sessions in between. Buy a single session ticket for ⚡100k (~$10 USD) or join the hackathon with a ⚡100 “proof of node” buy in. On the last day, all hackers will present their projects and will also vote on their favorite ones. First place wins 0.2 BTC, second place wins 0.15 BTC, and third place wins 0.1 BTC!
Lightning Infrastructure Lead at Lightning Labs
c-lightning Maintainer at Blockstream
Researcher at Blockstream
c-lightning Protocol Developer at Blockstream
Protocol Engineer at Lightning Labs
Director of R&D @ RADAR
CTO of Acinq
Entropy Destroyer and Sorceress at BTCPay
After a short introduction, we will provide themes for the Bolt-A-Thon. We will also go over the criteria hackers should use to vote for their favorite projects on the last day. Finally, the team behind LNURL will give a short workshop on how to integrate it into Lightning applications.
Polar: Better Tools for Lightning App Developers
What’s Next for Whatsat: Plausible Futures for Chat Over Lightning
REDSHIFT: Cross-Network Submarine Swaps for a Better Tomorrow
Protocol Development Using c-lightning
Lightning in 2020
Fast Strike: An Orientation Guide to bitcoind and c-lightning
Deep dive into the design and implementation of eclair
Advanced c-lightning Node Customization: Dangerous Hooks
BTCPayServer as your lightning node
Hackers will have until 2pm PDT to record and submit a 5 minute presentation on their projects. The judges will then go through each of the presentations and score them. The top 5 projects will be selected to present in Round 2.
The top 5 projects will get 10 minutes to present their projects live in front of the judges and have a time for Q and A. Judges will then score the projects once more. All hackers may vote on their favorite presentations. Hackers may not vote for their own project.
Winners announced and closing thoughts.
First place will be awarded 0.2 BTC, Second place 0.15 BTC, and Third place 0.1 BTC.
On the internet! We will be streaming all of our sessions online through zoom on our website. When you purchase a ticket, you will be given a unique code that you will be able to redeem to see the session. The code can also be redeemed through a zoom client if you prefer. Don't forget to sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of the site to have the links to the sessions emailed directly to you!
Want to attend the Bolt-A-Thon in person? Check out the list below and join one of the many groups who've committed to hosting a viewing party in your area!
The Bolt-A-Thon is the first truly decentralized Lightning Network conference and hack-a-thon. In order to facilitate that, we encourage college campuses and meetup groups all over the world to host viewing parties of our speaker sessions on Dec. 7.
If you'd like to organize your own Bolt-A-thon viewing party, please email us at boltathon(at)gmail.com
