Pettycoin: Towards 1.0
Channel: Linux.conf.au 2015 -- Auckland, New Zealand
Date: 2015-01-16

Rusty Russell
http://lca2015.linux.org.au/schedule/30308/view_talk
Pettycoin is an adjunct network for tiny bitcoin transactions.  It was first unveiled in slightly vaporous form at LCA2014, but since then I've taken a 6 month sabbatical and spent much more time on it.

The bitcoin network is powered by "miners" who compete to work on proofs.  This infrastructure is expensive, and places a lower limit on how cheap transactions on the bitcoin network can become.  For genuinely tiny microtransactions, various schemes have been proposed to operate off-network temporarily; pettycoin aims to do this in a general and open way, using the same work the bitcoin miners are already doing.

The talk has two parts: the first part is about the technology itself, and the second part is about founding and managing a "for fun" FOSS project in a space which is crowded with many good ideas and even more VC money chasing them.