---
title: Contributions
tags: software
---

# **Contributions**

---

I have contributed to many projects, mostly open source. Here are some that I'm particularly proud of.

---

## [Voltage](https://www.voltage.cloud)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/voltage-dash-5.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/voltage-dash-5.webp" alt="Voltage Dashboard" width="800" height="487" loading="lazy">
</picture>

I'm on the frontend engineering team at [Voltage](https://voltage.cloud/). We've built an easy to use Bitcoin Lightning Payments API. If you've interacted with our product at all from the browser, chances are I worked on it!

I am grateful to this company for cultivating a culture of giving back to the community through open source development via [FOSS Fridays](https://voltage.cloud/blog/foss-friday/foss-fridays-at-voltage). It has enabled me to connect more broadly with the Bitcoin community and expand my skills as a software engineer. It’s a great team on a great [mission](https://voltage.cloud/about); the spirit of [definite optimism](https://boxkitemachine.net/posts/zero-to-one-peter-thiel-definite-vs-indefinite-thinking) is alive and well here.

---

## [Block Clock](https://github.com/voltagecloud/block-clock)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/blockclock.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/blockclock.webp" alt="Block Clock Image" width="800" height="354" loading="lazy">
</picture>

The frontend and design team at Voltage built this `block-clock` web component that connects to Bitcoin Core to display the distribution of block times in a standard 12-hour clock face, using the beautiful designs from the [Bitcoin Core App](https://bitcoincore.app/?ref=blucas.ghost.iohttps://bitcoincore.app) project to do it. We use it in our own [Bitcoin Core Nodes](https://www.voltage.cloud/bitcoin-core) product, but we wanted to make this something that could be shared with the community. We built it as a web component so it's easy to run it in any browser environment, whether you're using frameworks like React or Sveltekit, or just want to drop it directly into an HTML page. If you have a Bitcoin Core node, give it a try!

Check out the [Github Repo](https://github.com/voltagecloud/block-clock) or watch our discussion with the [Bitcoin Design Community](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKZ-IPlADY) to see how it works!

---

## [Payjoin](https://payjoin.org)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/payjoin.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/payjoin.webp" alt="Payjoin Example Image" width="800" height="551" loading="lazy">
</picture>

Payjoin is a protocol designed to assist bitcoin scaling, help save fees, and preserve privacy, whose adoption by even a small minority of wallets could have dramatically positive effects for all bitcoin users.

I built the current version of [payjoin.org](https://payjoin.org) with help from [Dan Gould](https://dangould.dev). I'm also contributing to [Payjoin Dev Kit (PDK)](https://dangould.dev), a tiny library that helps wallets integrate Payjoin, and includes a reference implementation, `payjoin-cli`, that showcases its features.

---

## [Interactive Payjoin](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/interactive-payjoin)

1st place sub-project at the [MIT Bitcoin Hackathon](https://mitbitcoin.devpost.com/). A proof-of-concept demo website showcasing the first instance of the use of [Payjoin Dev Kit](https://payjoindevkit.org/) in the browser by compiling the Rust library to [WASM](https://webassembly.org/).

---

## [bolt12.org](https://bolt12.org)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/bolt12.org.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/bolt12.org.webp" alt="Image of Bolt12 Homepage" width="800" height="498" loading="lazy">
</picture>

BOLT 12 is a specification for implementing offers, which massively improves the lightning user experience by making QR codes:

- Reusable
- Smaller
- Capable of sending you money, like an ATM, as well as receiving

It generates these QRs in-band, as opposed to the out-of-band [LNURL](https://voltage.cloud/blog/lightning-network-faq/how-does-lnurl-work-enhancing-lightnings-user-experience) format, which requires a web server that generates invoices on behalf of your lightning node and is essentially a "hack" on previous limitations of lightning. We can make huge improvements to both the developer and user experience by adopting BOLT 12, and this website hopes to encourage its adoption.

I collaborated with master designer [@sbddesign](https://x.com/StephenDeLorme) to build the current version of bolt12.org.

---

## [Doppler](https://github.com/tee8z/doppler)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/doppler.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/doppler.webp" alt="Image showing usage of Doppler" width="800" height="472" loading="lazy">
</picture>

Doppler is a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) created by [@tee8z](https://x.com/Tee8z) that allows you to write reusable scripts to create local [regtest](https://developer.bitcoin.org/examples/testing.html) (and [Mutinynet](https://blog.mutinywallet.com/mutinynet)!) environments in any configuration you like. The scripts allow for easy reproducibility of any scenario you can think of and dramatically expands the possibilities for testing bitcoin and lightning applications, improving on one of the main limitations of testing software like [Polar](https://lightningpolar.com) (also a great project).

Alongside [@tee8z](https://x.com/Tee8z), I built the first iteration of the frontend that allows you to visualize and build scripts using the Scratch block programming language.

---

## [Satogram](https://satogram.xyz)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/satogram.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/satogram.webp" alt="Image Showing Satogram Logo" width="800" height="407" loading="lazy">
</picture>

Wouldn't it be nice to get paid to see ads, instead of today, where your data is harvested for profit and you get barraged with internet-polluting ads?

Satogram is a project that advertisers can use to pay to send ads over the Lightning Network. It's like spam email, except you're getting paid!

Satogram came out of a hackathon project at Tabconf 2023 led by [@BitcoinCoderBob](https://x.com/BitcoinCoderBob). I built the frontend at the hackathon. As of this writing, Satogram has been used to send a total of 1,515,896 advertisements!

---

## [Alby](https://getalby.com)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/alby.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/alby.webp" alt="Image showing Alby homepage" width="800" height="453" loading="lazy">
</picture>

Alby is a popular lighting wallet browser extension that comes with a wide variety of innovative features. In my first real contributions to open source, I helped build the internationalization flow to allow the app to be translated to a variety of different languages. I also added the ability to [connect and make payments via signets such as Mutinynet](https://github.com/getAlby/lightning-browser-extension/pull/3128), to allow for easier testing of web applications with [WebLN](https://webln.guide). Thanks to the Alby team for taking the time to help me contribute to open source bitcoin in the first place, kicking off this crazy exciting adventure.

---

## [QRty](https://qr-ai.netlify.app)

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/qrty.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/qrty.webp" alt="Image showing QRty homepage" width="800" height="354" loading="lazy">
</picture>

This project used [stable diffusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion) to generate artistic QR codes based on a prompt. Since the only options to generate these QR codes at the time were through subscription services, we thought it would be nice if people could make small payments per query with bitcoin (an idea [obviously befitting to AI services](https://hivemind.vc/ai) in general, but for whatever reason this idea hasn't broken through past us in the bitcoin bubble to mainstream consciousness yet).

It's no longer active due to relatively low use, but we were really proud of the result and you can still see some examples of scan-able codes we created on the site and in these Twitter posts. Built on Voltage with my friend [@LightningK0ala](https://x.com/LightningK0ala).

<picture>
  <source srcset="/images/contributions/qr-walt.avif" type="image/avif">
  <img src="/images/contributions/qr-walt.webp" alt="Image of Walter White as a QR Code" width="800" height="972" loading="lazy">
</picture>

_I wish I'd saved the prompt that generated this._
