The Charter The Codices

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204Course · Practitioner

Lightning Network

Bitcoin at the speed of a payment.

The Course

Bitcoin at the speed of a payment. Payment channels, HTLCs, and routing — plus the Lab of actually sending a payment across the network.

Outcomes

01
Explain a payment channel.
02
Route a payment across the network.
03
Understand the tradeoffs of custodial and self-custodial Lightning.

Prerequisites

— UTXO Model.

Pacing

~3 hours including the Lab.

IModule
Payment channels
The primitive.
1. 01Opening and closing a channelArticle12m
2. 02HTLCsVisuals8m
IIModule
Routing
The network of channels.
1. 01Payment routingArticle12m
2. 02Lab: Send a Lightning paymentLab90m

A Note from the Faculty

Lightning is the honest test of whether you understand off-chain scaling.