Pierre Rochard is a hero among bitcoiners – thanks to his development efforts with the Node Launcher, regular users can onboard the Lightning Network within minutes. In just a few months, he has managed to integrate a competitive Lightning client, make it available for the two most popular operating systems (Windows and MacOS), and add a friendly interface that anyone can understand. All of these can be found in a piece of software that you simply download, install, and run without ever writing a single line of code.
In this exclusive interview, Mr. Rochard explains how his academic background in accounting has helped him acquire the skills needed to write Bitcoin code, why he thinks that accessible point-and-click interfaces should be developed by third party designers and coders (as opposed to software engineers), and how regular computers (such as older laptops) can outperform any mobile or Raspberry Pi-based solution when running Bitcoin and Lightning nodes.
As you’re about to discover, a longer discussion takes place in order to tackle the issue of payment channels and their reliability in relation to the consistency of the node, and then the debate moves on to Neutrino (BIP 157 and 158). Pierre Rochard establishes that onboarding the Lightning Network can be made in different ways which suit very different needs: while routing nodes should be online all the time and make use of UPS devices and back-up storage in order to preserve the channels, regular users can simply get on and off whenever they need to send or receive payments (granted that the channels don’t get force closed by the other parties).
By the end of this 40-minute interview, you will have found out many useful details about Lightning and its many intricacies, as Pierre Rochard is excellent at explaining difficult concepts in very simple words.
Special thanks to Crypto Meme Central for his work on this beautiful and surrealist cover image. You may see more of his works on Twitter by following this link.
