Breaking Into Bitcoin Core Development with BOSS & How AI Is Changing Protocol Development

Show Notes

In this clip, Steve Lee (Spiral Lead, @moneyball) walks through Chaincode’s BOSS (Bitcoin Open Source Software) challenge, a full-time, three-month on-ramp for serious developers. The crew also digs into how AI is starting to help (and sometimes hurt) Bitcoin and Lightning development. They cover where AI coding tools are already useful (tests, fuzzing, code review), why Bitcoin Core is still so dangerous to touch, and the story of a new Bitcoin implementation written with heavy help from Claude that can sync in minutes. Timestamps: 0:00 – BOSS challenge overview: a structured path into bitcoin open source 02:14 – AI scaling and skepticism among bitcoin core developers 05:00 – How bitcoin teams are (or are not) actually using AI today 07:34 – BIPs, governance, and the flood of AI-written code 10:20 – Why bitcoin core changes are risky and how AI can help test 12:41 – Claude-assisted bitcoin node implementation and fast sync experiment 15:40 – Using AI to explore new bitcoin designs and ideas 🎧 From the PBJ podcast recorded at 📍Presidio Bitcoin 🔗 Full episode: https://youtube.com/live/SqExLGqYIhc?feature=share 🌐 Learn more: https://www.presidiobitcoin.org/