Investors trade options and forwards to make money. However, businesses use these financial instruments as a means to reduce and mitigate exposure to risks. The most common methods of are through derivative instruments such as swaps, futures and options.
As we have written previously, Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs) can offer some novel opportunities for hedging risk unique to the crypto economy. Specifically, for mining operations and block fees.
A Discreet Log Contract is a “simple” oracle contract scheme proposed by Tadge Dryja of MIT . DLCs can be executed using almost any blockchain, including Bitcoin. An oracle contract starts with…
In previous Lightning 201 articles we have written about changing how our Lightning nodes database works. Currently both Eclair and C-lightning use a SQLite3 database by default to store information related to their channels. Since SQLite cannot be used as a remote database, we added support for PostgreSQL in Eclair .
Safely Access Remote Lightning Databases
Failover Strategies For Lightning Nodes
The next question is; what is the performance impact of switching to a different database?
Lightning is meant to be a fast way to send bitcoin between two parties. At Suredbits we think a successful use…
Additional Lightning 201 articles:
Failover Strategies for Lightning Nodes
Previously in our Lightning 201 series we discussed failover strategies for a Lightning node . The first thing necessary to safely failover a Lightning node is move the database to a remote machine. This means that if the machine that is running the Lightning node fails, the database won’t fail as well. Now another Lightning node can connect to your remote database and resume operations.
Node backups and failovers leave us with another problem though: What happens if two “shadow” lightning nodes are trying to access the…
It was a busy and hectic, but productive, year at Suredbits. We released a number of new services and technologies in 2019 that furthers the goal of democratizing data. We are proud of our accomplishments and humbled by the support and growth of the Lightning community. Here is a brief review of some of the milestones and achievements of 2019.
Crypto Spot Exchange API
We started the year adding more depth and breadth to our Spot Exchange API service. We wanted to provide crypto traders and investors data from the most liquid trading pairs from the most reputable exchanges. …
Additional Lightning 201 articles you might find interesting:
Safely Access Remote Lightning Databases
Lightning Network adoption continues to proliferate in 2019. Last week Bitfinex was the first major exchange to adopt Lightning as a way to transfer BTC. Now you can deposit and withdraw BTC from their exchange in seconds.
One thing exchange operators have asked is how to safely “ “ their Lightning node. The ability to failover pieces of your infrastructure is critical in providing high availability web services that customers can access at any time.
Unlike bitcoin, Lightning is an interactive protocol that…
Thus far in our Neutrino series we’ve taken a deep dive into the details of what Neutrino is, why it’s great for users, how filters work, and how Neutrino uses them. At Suredbits, we have been implementing a Neutrino node in our own open-source library bitcoin-s. In this post we will discuss how that process has gone and what new things we’ve learned about Neutrino.
Many thanks to Suredbits Software Engineer Roman Taranchenko who was the lead person on our Neutrino implementation.*
At the beginning of this series we discussed Neutrino at a high level and looked at benefits for wallets. In the last post, we started our deep dive into the inner workings of Neutrino clients by detailing how probabilistic filters are constructed as specified by BIP 158. In this post, we will continue our detailed tour by discussing how these filters are used by clients in their operations.
What is Neutrino And Why We Need It
Before diving into the P2P messages that were introduced in BIP 157, we must…
Whether an advanced technical trader with years of experience or someone who is just starting out, one thing is critical to successful trading strategies: data. Specifically, historical data. Regardless if one is trading equities, bonds, currencies, derivatives or crypto assets, the ability to easily and reliably access historical data is fundamental to executing trading strategy and managing a portfolio.
Investors commonly use backtesting before trading in live markets. Backtesting is the process of applying your trading hypothesis against historical data to determine how it performed. In order to do this, investors need data from a variety of sources over multiple…
Previously we have discussed what Neutrino is and what it has to offer wallets as Bitcoin’s new light client. In this post we’ll dive into the details of how Neutrino works its magic.
BIP 158
Neutrino is specified over BIPs 157 and 158. BIP 158 will be the topic of this post and details the data structures that Neutrino uses which allow clients to privately detect when they need to download more blockchain data. BIP 157 specifies the P2P messages used by Neutrino clients…
In our first post on Neutrino, we discussed the state of Bitcoin light clients. Specifically we introduced Neutrino nodes and contrasted them to traditional Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) nodes. At Suredbits, we’re currently working on adding Neutrino support to Bitcoin-S. For this post, I would like to further explore Neutrino nodes and their tangible effects on wallets.
How Neutrino Works Part 1 How Neutrino Works Part 2 Implementing Neutrino What Is Neutrino And Why We Need It
The first benefit is that Neutrino has a fast initial sync. After all, it wouldn’t be a very good light client if it…
