Sergi Delgado and Watchtowers, Lightning Privacy - Episode 28

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)