Even though I am a New Yorker who first discovered bitcoin almost a decade ago, I have remained ignorant of the bitdev concept until very recently. From what I assumed these organizations were exclusively for developers, and any meetings open to the public would be highly technical and way over my head. Then, I was bored one day when I was in the Tampa Bay area, so I decided to attend a bitdev meetup. I posted about that experience:

#1511345

I had such a good time that I figured I would check out the New York bitdev community when I returned home.

The birth of bitdev

BitdevsNYC was founded by Jay Beddict in 2013. It was originally housed in the Bitcoin Center NYC in lower Manhattan’s financial district, across from the New York Stock Exchange. The meetups focused on code, protocol mechanics, and cryptography. No price speculation or altcoin discussion. From the start, Jay adopted a “socratic seminar” format, which ideally serves as a guided group debate.

At some point the meetings were moved to the offices of Chaincode Labs, at 450 Lexington avenue, 38^th floor. Chaincode maintains bitcoin core (check out my sticker), the BIPs system, and Bitcoin Optech.

https://chaincode.com/

My Big Night

This is where last night’s seminar was held. I happened to pick a hot, humid summer afternoon to visit. The long train ride was unusual, since the NYC skyline was almost completely obscured by the heavy smoke from Canadian wildfires.

Allow me a minor complaint about the process of getting on the list to attend the seminar. First of all, I recognize this is a first class operation. They feed you, provide liquid refreshment, and you get to listen to world class bitcoin devs. It still struck me as annoying that I had to register through meetup.com. You had to log in with an email address, pssword, deal with 100 different captcha photos (if you’re spastic like me), and be told you need to bring photo ID to get in. I’m aware that the photo ID is probably an office building requirement, but still. Couldn’t we at least be able to log in with lightning? They certainly respect the network, as I learned during the seminar.

Anyway, that’s the end of my whining. I recommend to anyone who gets the opportunity to attend a NYC bitdev seminar. I avoided it for years because I was intimidated. Everyone involved was welcoming. I figured I would have been the oldest guy in the room, but there were plenty of graybeards. Even bitcoin beginners were made to feel comfortable, while at the same time the discussion was cordial, well run, and very instructive. I felt like I was back in school in a class I was actually interested in, with good teachers. I’m not going to mention names or affiliations of anyone who presented or attended, as I agreed to maintain the privacy of individuals as a condition of attendance. I think that is fair.

Even though this was a Chaincode extravaganza, the Core/Knots discussion was kept to a minimum. More time was spent on Paul Sztorc’s drive chain hard fork. Then we learned about the Spark/Ark controversy. I didn’t even know they were fighting. Everyone was encouraged to speak, so I made some stupid comment about the fact that neither were decentralized. No one threw stuff at me and told me to shut up. Next, there was mention of the first stratum v2 block being mined by a company named DMND.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/bitcoin-mining/bitcoin-mining-pool-dmnd-mines

This is a big deal. However, then a discussion ensued as to how much better this company is for miner decentralization than Ocean. As some of you know, I mine with Ocean. It’s not political for me. When I started mining with them running knots was an option, not a political statement. So, everyone started saying how wonderful DMND was, and how Alejandro De La Torre was very concerned with mining centralization and wanted to change things. I started googling the company to think about switching. I discovered that they are full KYC. This was addressed. Alejandro didn’t want to scare off big businesses by not being fully compliant. One of the reasons I like Ocean is there is no KYC. Then, I discovered that the DMND pool only supports on chain payouts. Strike two for me, since I’m a little pleb miner. Third, you get paid in rBTC, which is a shitcoin in my book. So, I quietly decided to stop listening and stick with crazy Luke.

The second part of the meeting was a deep dive into trampoline lightning payments. I feel like I learned a lot about onion routing. The presentation was very good. The point was to explain how the technology could be used for mobile phone routing, although the presenter acknowledged that there were still problems. I admit I kind of wished @justin_shocknet was there to shake things up a little. Oh well.

The time flew by. I couldn’t believe how quickly two hours had passed. Everyone was heading downtown to Pubkey for a few drinks, but I was tired and decided to begin my long journey home instead.

I had a great time. If you get the chance, make the effort to attend and see for yourself.