Rene Pickhardt - (Independent) Lightning Network Developer & Researcher

Hi you probably came here because you wanted to learn why to support my work via my fund raiser!
So let me first list an overview of my achievements for the Lightning Network Community since 2018 and then say a few words why I believe that funding independent open source developement matters.

Education

Research

I am currently finalizing a paper on the fundamental limitations of the number of payments per second that the lightning network is supporting.

Together with my co-authors I... My main interest is reliabilty of Bitcoin Payments via the Lightning Network and understanding the technical limitations and boundaries of the Lightning Network Protocol.

Vulnurabilities & Security issues

Why open source does matter!

I believe that society can flourish and prosper best if everyone has good access to knowledge and information.
Open Source Software is an often underrated crucial part of achieving this. Have a look at this German video to learn more.

I was fortunate enough to receive the highest education which was paid for by a scholarschip from the German National Academic Foundation while my parents could not have afforded to support my plans to go to university. Also I use open source software every day or at least things that are build with the help of open software. So personally this choice is my way of paying back a debt that I feel I owe.

Why independent open source?

Even open source can be driven by interestes from companies. This is not neccessarily bad. Good examples are the development of Web standards in W3C and the linux kernel developement.
However pitching for developer grants gives tremendous power to the people who sponsor such research and thus they might decide not to fund research and development that is not in their own interest. I am not saying that this happens but I am saying that you can prevent this by helping me work independently on what I believe is best for the Lightning Network. In the spirit of being a swarm of decentralized cyberhornets (or what ever the current lingo is) I think especially for Bitcoin this is very important.

Disclaimer: Obviously it is hard to find a community of people who are willing to match competitive salaries so I will accept grants like the ones provide through NTNU and BitMEX or I might do consulting to compensate for my time.

Software and Data sets

I am currently the maintainer of the pickhardt payments python package. Feel free to download the listchannels20220412.json data set. I am also a contributor to the lnresearch project.

Media

I am occasionally available for interviews or background and fact checking conversations with media outlets. Please find the incomplete list of examples:

German Speaking (Non Bitcoin related Outlets)

English Speaking (Bitcoin related outlets)

Letter of Recommendation (if you prefer trust over verification)

While I strongly encourage to read and verify my work I understand that there are circumstances where you might not have enough time to do so and prefer to rely in your decision making to a trusted third party. Fortunatelly I have been given the following letter of recommendation from Rusty Russell. You can verify it using gpg via the following commands. (The first imports Rusty's key in case you don't have it):
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 15EE8D6CAB0E7F0CF999BFCBD9200E6CD1ADB8F1
wget https://www.rene-pickhardt.de/letter_of_recommendation.txt 
gpg --verify letter_of_recommendation.txt
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

To whom it may concern,

	In the young field of studying the Lightning Network, Rene has
proven uniquely insightful on the tangled problem of payment strategies.
His research is now bearing fruit and is widely accepted as the optimal
method of making payments.

	His current work on the effect and incentives of protocol design
(including the widespread adoption of his own algorithms) is critical to
the future development of Lightning and its specifications.  His
background, tenacity, and respect within the wider Lightning community
is unparalleled by any other researcher.

I can recommend him and his research for funding without reservation!

Sincerely,
Rusty Russell,
Senior Lightning Developer,
Blockstream and Core Lightning.
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My c-lightning node

id03efccf2c383d7bf340da9a3f02e2c23104a0e4fe8ac1a880c8e2dc92fbdacd9df
aliasln.rene-pickhardt.de
color03efcc
num_peers82
num_pending_channels1
num_active_channels81
num_inactive_channels0
address
typeaddressport
ipv4144.76.235.209735
binding
typeaddressport
ipv4144.76.235.209735
blockheight820450
networkbitcoin
msatoshi_fees_collected293808880
fees_collected_msat293808880msat
our_features
init080269a2
node800000080269a2
channel
invoice02000000024100
You can also test my video voting LAPP