Bitcoin Optech: Channel Depletion Research Deep Dive Podcast

Dave Harding and Mike Schmidt are joined by René Pickhardt and Christian Decker to discuss Pickhardt’s ⁠Lightning Network channel depletion research⁠.

• Summary of Pickhardt's research (1:01)


• Why look at wealth distributions? (5:45)


• What can be learned from depletion? (11:38)


• Circular rebalancing (13:33)


• What determines where the spanning tree is? (15:28)


• Mitigating depletion (20:14)


• Adjacent channels and their impact (26:39)


• Multiparty channels, channel factories, and Ark (29:52)


• Hub-and-spoke topology discussion (41:06)


• What real world data would inform the theoretical? (54:54)