The Breaking Bitcoin[1] conference, first[2] organized last summer[3] in Paris, is returning for its second edition under the name “Building on Bitcoin[4],” this time in Lisbon, July 3–4, 2018. While the event in the French capital was centered around security, the one in the Portuguese capital will focus on second-layer technologies and other creative uses of the Bitcoin protocol.
“The Bitcoin blockchain is pretty limited in terms of features and flexibility; many newcomers think you can’t build anything with it,” Chainsmiths[5] managing director and conference co-organizer Kevin Loaec told Bitcoin Magazine. “Yet, smart people find ways to build complex solutions on top of it. It’s interesting to share that knowledge.”
Second-Layer Technologies
After the sold-out first edition in Paris last year, which was loosely inspired by the successful Scaling Bitcoin[6] conference format introduced in 2015, it seemed natural that Breaking Bitcoin, too, would turn into an annual event. The French organizers — besides Loaec, French Bitcoin community member Pierre Lorcery is putting the event together — decided to slightly change the name and format for this follow-up, however.
“We got good feedback [on] Breaking Bitcoin,” Loaec explained. “People were asking us when the next event would be. But we felt that organizing a conference focused around security each year may be a bit much; we don’t want to become repetitive. The plan is now to alternate: one year of Breaking Bitcoin, one year of Building on Bitcoin.”
Building on Bitcoin will focus on second-layer technologies in a broad sense. The best known and most popular of these is probably the[7] Lightning[8] Network[9], of which the first implementations entered[10] their beta stage over
