While many see the Lightning network as the main hope for scaling up Bitcoin, it is unclear if many developers are actually working to make it happen.

According to Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, there can be as few as 10 full-time developers focused on the implementation of the technology, which has prevented the launch of the network earlier.

In this context, a group of 26 universities known as Bsafe.network launched a competition to encourage people to evaluate bitcoin Layer 2 technologies, namely Lightning.

Although the prize has not yet been nominated, the competition aims to encourage engineers, students and professors to measure the security and confidentiality of the network and to "collect models of attack" that bad actors could use to disrupt payments. Network, a technology that is being touted as a way to reduce bitcoin and potentially reduce costs.

This extra control comes at a time when users and developers are anxiously waiting for Lightning to really launch.

While the Lightning Network developers recommend using only the technology on the testnet with dummy parts, a handful of enthusiasts and enthusiastic developers started playing with the technology with the actual bitcoin. Some of these intrepid testers have even lost some money in the process. Some companies, such as the TorGuard VPN provider, already accept Lightning Network payments.

The contest inspires past contests to improve cryptography standards commonly used on the Internet to secure data, such as AES and SHA-3, said the co-founder of Bsafe.network and research professor at the University of Applied Sciences. 39, Georgetown University, Shin ichiro Matsuo.

And, he continued, Bsafe's global test network maintained by the universities will act as a neutral research body to analyze submissions for lightning network lightning trials.

Matsuo tells CoinDesk:

"We believe that many improvements to Lightning Network will come through this competition."

Submissions for the contest, which is open to all, must be received in March. Once all proposals have been received, universities will test them all on Bsafe's global test network, culminating in a conference in August where winners will be announced.

Understand that

Matsuo said that he also hopes that the submissions will highlight the security and privacy of technology and how it will interact with the "first layer" of cryptocurrency.

Because no one can really know how the technology will be used or exploited on a large scale, this contest could help. By asking for proposals from all over the world, which will be analyzed by academics from different countries and fields, Matsuo thinks that the competitive atmosphere will help shed light on the precise trade-offs.

"Layer 2 technologies such as Lightning Network are needed to improve the scalability of payments on the bitcoin blockchain, but they could change the trust model, which means that Lightning Network might not be able to completely decentralized ". ]

For this reason, technology has its fair share of critics, the strongest of whom claim that it will not be decentralized in practice.

The contest is therefore an effort to glean insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the Lightning Network.

Public competition

And after the submissions have been judged and awarded, the Bsafe network plans to "disclose all the ratings" and open all the code for the bitcoin community to view and learn from the results.

But beyond improving the Lightning network, Matsuo hopes that Bsafe.network will have another wider impact on the bitcoin and blockchain industry.

Matsuo wants this competition to be only the first among so many others and wants to grow the network of universities that are part of the group, in order to make its reach even more diverse.

"With 26 universities and growing, doing this type of open competition gives us a neutral result to compare this kind of technology," he said.

And if the group can convince the broader community of its neutrality, Matsuo hopes that those who are engaged in heated discussions – like the debate about block size – in the community can turn to Bsafe for guidance based on tests. In his mind, the vitriol that often comes from debates is exacerbated by "communication problems" that a Bsafe.network network could lead more productively by providing technical analysis.

He concluded:

"We already have this for cryptography, but for bitcoin and blockchain, we need a more neutral way to analyze the technology."

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