SF Bitcoin Event - Scaling up Bitcoin

Note: Livestream link will be in the comments section when the event starts.

Details
How to safely improve the scalability while keeping the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network? During this meetup, two researchers - Ren Zhang from Nervos/KU Leuven, Patrick McCorry from King's College London will share their explorations in two perspectives: consensus optimization and adding other layer 2 support.

Agenda:
6:30-7:00 Check-in and Say Hi

7:00-7:30 #Exploring the Throughput Limit of Nakamoto Consensus# by Ren Zhang

7:30-8:00 # Scaling Cryptocurrencies via State Channels (and how it can be improved in Bitcoin) # by Patrick McCorry

8:00-8:30 Q&A

More info about the topics:

#Exploring the Throughput Limit of Nakamoto Consensus#

A public blockchain relies on consensus algorithms to reach agreement among nodes. Bitcoin has laid the foundation of the PoW consensus, of which the safety has been battle-tested for over ten years.

Ren Zhang (researcher at Nervos) will give an overview of Nervos’ layer 1 consensus, which aims to push Bitcoin's PoW consensus to the extreme: to maximize the throughput and minimize the transaction confirmation latency without sacrificing security.

Presented by Ren Zhang (https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/people/ren-zhang/), former researcher at Blockstream, currently researcher at Nervos CKB, a public permissionless blockchain (https://github.com/nervosnetwork/ckb). Ren is also a research assistant at KU Leuven. His research areas include blockchain consensus protocols, p2p network security and privacy-preserving technologies.

# Scaling Cryptocurrencies via State Channels (and how it can be improved in Bitcoin) #

State channels let a group of parties transact (and execute a smart contract) locally amongst themselves. The global blockchain is only used to open the channel, close the channel, or to resolve disputes within the group of parties. In this talk, we will provide an overview of how to construct a channel (in both Bitcoin and Ethereum), some experimental results on this scaling solution and highlight its practicality.

Presented by_Patrick McCorry_ (https://nms.kcl.ac.uk/patrick.mccorry/), Assistant Professor at King's College London with a focus on cryptocurrencies, decentralised systems and building cryptographic protocols.

Thanks for the support from SF Bitcoin meetup (https://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-Bitcoin-Social/) and Starfish Mission (https://www.meetup.com/Starfish-Mission/).

Note: Space is extremely limited. RSVP is required, but not a guarantee. If we hit the facility maximum, we have to close the doors. First come first serve, so RSVP and come early!

To watch or share this events's live stream, check here: TBA, Link will be posted when the event starts!

Every last Tuesday of the month, we'll be hosting speaker(s) or a panel session to highlight various projects and topics in the world of bitcoin. We will also have time for 1-minute long lighting talks for anyone who signs up. All speakers will be live streamed, and the remainder of the evening will be for networking and socializing!

This months speaker(s) are: TBA

We'll have free beer, other beverages and food as usual (the food usually goes quickly)! You can also follow us on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoBitcoin/

And finally, to give a lightning talk, just add your name to the list at the beginning of the meetup!