The Lightning Network was built around the idea of financial inclusivity. Anyone can make a purchase and should be able to do so pseudonymously. What if conferences and hackathons were structured around these same core principles? As the world’s first online Lightning Network conference and hackathon, that’s exactly what the Bolt-A-Thon was designed to be. By hosting the event online, Bolt-A-Thon reaches a world-wide community, sets incredibly affordable ticket prices, and process all payments into Lightning Bitcoin.
Hackathon
The first part of the Bolt-A-Thon is for our hackers. They hackathon will start on April 5 with the kick off at 6pm PST and runs through April 7 at 2pm PST. Hackers will be provided a suggested theme and will have two and a half days to build their projects to then present in front of their peers and our judges. First, second, and third place winners will receive 0.3 BTC, 0.2 BTC, and 0.1 BTC respectively. Blockstack PBC will also be offering an additional bounty of $1000 for the best project built with Blockstack.
Conference
www.boltathon.com
The second part of the Bolt-A-Thon is the conference. Our fantastic lineup includes representatives from all three major Lightning Network implementations: Rusty Russell from Blockstream, Conner Fromknecht from Lightning Labs, and Fabrice Drouin from ACINQ. This ensures diverse client coverage that will be available for current and future developers.
Not a coder? Not to worry. The Bolt-A-Thon also offers alternative topics such as the Node Launching session with Pierre Rochard, Lightning Network games with Lightning Koala, and even a sobering talk about the limitations of the Lightning Network with Alex Bosworth.
Voting
One of the unique features of our website is that it allows people to submit posts to become a potential speaker for the Bolt-A-Thon. It also allows people from the community to vote on their favorite topic proposal with satoshis. The top posts will earn a spot to speak at the conference.
Ticket Prices
So join the Lightning revolution that is taking Bitcoin by storm. Tickets are 250,000 satoshis (~$10) per session and 100 satoshis to register for the hackathon. And if you don’t have a Lightning wallet, you can always pay on-chain with Bitcoin or Litecoin through submarine swaps.