Bengaluru BITDEVS: Lightning and Multisig
Most interesting engineering problems stop being “clean” the moment they meet the real world.
You start with a simple model. Then constraints pile up. Information is incomplete. Optimizing for one thing breaks another. At some point, you’re no longer finding the best solution... you’re choosing a reasonable one.
Bitcoin systems are full of problems like this.
Lightning routing is one of them. Multisig custody is another.
This BITDEVS is about looking closely at how these problems are actually approached in practice. Going into the heuristics, the tradeoffs, and the decisions hiding underneath systems that often get described as “just working”.
What will we be digging into?
1️⃣ Lightning pathfinding
Every Lightning payment requires the sender to choose a route up front, through a network where channel balances are uncertain, fees can behave in unexpected ways, and timelocks accumulate hop by hop.
Different node implementations take different approaches to this problem, each optimizing for slightly different goals. In reality, routing often becomes a problem of informed guesses rather than guaranteed-optimal paths.
We’ll look at how popular Lightning implementations approach routing, what tradeoffs they make, and what that means for reliability, cost, and user experience.
2️⃣ Threshold multisig and custody tradeoffs
In multisig setups, increasing the threshold improves security, but also increases the chance of users locking themselves out.
We’ll explore simple ways to think about this tension, modeling security and usability as competing risks. From there, we’ll discuss how changing assumptions over time can motivate more flexible, dynamic approaches to threshold selection.
And who will be guiding us through all this?
It'll be Sindura! She is a PhD student at the University of Central Florida, researching Bitcoin and the Lightning Network with a focus on scalability and reliability. Her recent work includes a closed-form framework for selecting optimal threshold signatures for Bitcoin custody and an in-depth analysis of pathfinding strategies across Lightning clients.
So, what to expect?
This is a discussion-driven BITDEVS evening.
Expect clear explanations, concrete examples, and room to question assumptions. The focus is on understanding why these systems behave the way they do, not just how they’re described on paper.
There’s no code walkthrough required to follow along, but the conversation will be technical and thoughtful.
Is this BITDEVS for you?
YES, if you're:
A developer interested in how real systems behave under imperfect conditions
A Bitcoiner curious about the tradeoffs behind Lightning and custody design
Someone who likes reasoning about security, incentives, and constraints
Comfortable engaging in technical discussions, even if the topics are new to you
If any of these sound like you — or even if you’re just intrigued — come and see why BITDEVS is an event that keeps growing, session after session.
RSVP now to secure your spot!
Is it your first time coming to Bitspace for a session? Wondering what to expect?
Browse through some highlights and recaps from our previous events to get an idea:
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