Bitcoin Gaming Company ZEBEDEE Launches Open-Source Bitcoin Development Non-Profit

No Big Deal is currently focused on Lightning infrastructure and supporting hosted channels to remove the need of custodial users on Lightning.

ZEBEDEE, a bitcoin gaming company, has announced No Big Deal (NDB), a non-profit dedicated to furthering open source development for Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, per a release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

“NBD does not sell anything, it does not offer services, it does not support products,” said Andre Neves, co-founder and CTO of ZEBEDEE. “It just writes code and gives it to the world to do with it as they will.”

Currently, NBD has already contributed to a number of projects. For instance, the non-profit provided code for Open Bitcoin Wallet, which is an advanced non-custodial Lightning wallet that can support hosted channels.

Additionally, Poncho, which is a Core Lightning (CLN) plugin, and a daemon that enables hosted channel support for nodes known as Cliche have both received contributions from NBD.

Furthermore, the non-profit also contributed to Immortan, a Lightning Network library that provides plug and play developer capabilities, and LN Metrics, a data comparison tool to determine optimal Lightning Nodes, have also received contributions from NBD.

“We basically created an entire suite of tools for the modern sovereign individual, from the client you’d use to set up a node, to the wallet you’d use to manage your funds in a self-sovereign way,” said Neves.

The company has focused much of its contributions thus far on hosted channel support and the Lightning Network. Hosted channels are used to make moving funds across Lightning easier and less capital intensive by removing the need to lock up funds. The downside to locking up funds creates an obvious need for bitcoin reserves, which some users do not have the liquidity to sustain.

The important thing to note about these specific contributions is the continued expansion of hosted channel support and the continued growth of the Lightning Network removes the need for custodial services, such as the ones offered by ZEBEDEE themselves.

“This opens the door to more people running their own software, clients and infrastructure instead of using for-profit services like ZEBEDEE,” reads the release. “But that’s kind of the point of Bitcoin, so it’s No Big Deal.”