Localhost Research depends on the generosity of its donors. Just last year, Mark Casey and Wences Casares helped bootstrap Localhost Research into existence. With our organization established and actively contributing to the ecosystem, we have begun the process of expanding our team and program offerings with the support of the broader Bitcoin community–individuals, corporations, and foundations who all see the value in our work.

This is the first blog post in a series which details programs we are expanding, new programs we are launching, others we are experimenting with, and most importantly, giving thanks to those who make it all possible.

More broadly, our mission is to not only steward and contribute to projects we see as critical to the Bitcoin network, but to also lift up and educate new contributors. Inspired by the Chaincode Labs Residency Program and others like it, Localhost Research is excited to welcome Pol Espinasa as a Visiting Scholar!

This paid offering is designed to give Pol the opportunity to work closely with experienced members of the community in an in-person environment. His visit will last 3 months and includes room and board, trips to domestic and international conferences and meetups, as well as access to our office in Palo Alto and our testing and benchmarking infrastructure. Pol will be expected to work on shared projects in the office alongside pre-approved projects in his independent focus area.

Pol is a PhD student at UAB, where he is focused on the design and analysis of secure protocols anchored to Bitcoin. He has published two papers on the Lightning Network, one focused on privacy and another that investigates breach behavior in various lightning network implementations. He is also the author of the Bitcoin GroupHug scheme, host and organizer of BitDevs Barcelona, Barcelona Bitcoin Only, and a Summer of Bitcoin finalist.

We learned of Pol through his work at the B4OS residency program which he completed late last year. Many thanks to Dulce Villareal and the team there for putting this excellent program together and making the connection to our organization through Chaincode and Brink.

For the duration of his time at Localhost, Pol will continue to push forward his currently active PRs in Bitcoin Core, contribute to our shared projects within the Bitcoin Core Wallet, follow David Gumberg’s work on Compact Blocks, and work with w0xlt on a libbitcoinkernel-based block templater that operates in an enclave environment. This is a proof-of-concept of a scheme proposed in Justin and Matt’s MEVPool paper, a subject Pol has shown a particular interest in.

The combined costs of our offering to Pol are non-trivial. Without donors who share our vision, it would not be possible. In support of this initiative, we are graced by the generosity of Lightspark and Tyler Levine. We are deeply grateful. Welcome to the Localhost Family, Lightspark and Tyler. Thank you both.