If Bitcoin is ever going to become the worldwide currency or digital gold its advocates want to bring about, things need to change.

The network is the biggest, most well-known, most widely used blockchain that there is – it’s also just about the slowest for the same reason. With an average transaction speed of about 5 tx/s (compared, for example, to Visa’s capacity for 24,000 tx/s) the network is painfully congested and in dire need of scaling solutions.

One such solution is, of course, the Lightning Network, an off-chain layer that allows payment networks to process an unlimited amount of transactions off the main blockchain, while only requiring two entries on the Bitcoin blockchain – one to open the channel, and one to close it, regardless of how many thousands of transactions have taken place in the meantime.

While not everyone is on board with it (much like everything in the contrarian world of crypto), it’s a promising solution to the scaling problem. The concept is there – the issue now is the major shortage of developers. The IT industry in general is short-staffed worldwide at the moment, let alone the far more specialized industry that blockchain programming.

Chaincode Labs’ Bitcoin Developer Residency

However, there is a company working towards educating developers on how to add to the Lightning Network infrastructure which is currently still in beta phase.

Chaincode Labs recently launched a Lightning Network app development course starting on October 22 of this year. The “Bitcoin Residency” program is aimed at fostering a culture of talented and communicative Bitcoin developers and encouraging new talent to build on the network. The class lasted for one week and hosted 12 students in New York.

The class was the third of its kind hosted by Chaincode labs, with one earlier in 2018 and one in 2016. Mentors came from far and wide to teach at the class, and Chaincode Labs say that all classes were recorded and will be released to the public.

About the Company

Why release the course material? Chaincode Labs staff say they’re on a mission to increase adoption and development of the Bitcoin network.

Lead engineer James O’Beirne stated:

“Lightning is a promising technology, but right now, very few people are fluent with it. We would like to familiarize more engineers with how Lightning works and see more Lightning applications, and we would like to get a better understanding for what Lightning is capable of doing.”

To that end, he started up the course along with fellow CL and Bitcoin Core developers John Newbery and Marco Falke. The course does not require students to have a knowledge of the Bitcoin protocol as apps can be written in any language. The only requirement is that students have some kind of an idea of what kind of app they’d like to build – Chaincode Labs even offers a stipend to assist students in their travel expenses.

If you’re interested in keeping an eye out for future courses, you can find Chaincode Labs on Twitter or check out their website for more info.

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