What will happen when only large institutions can afford to use Bitcoin's blockchain, due to rising fees? Won't this centralize the network if most can only trade bitcoin on centralized exchanges?

(this is a repost from the general bitcoin thread - we received some early feedback conflating the design with side-chains, but our proposal is more akin to `sub-chains', since it involves integrated network shards. This made me think perhaps more nuanced discussion would be available here.)

...

I've been an avid bitcoin-er for some time now, and found myself quite passionate regarding the potential of blockchain technology to benefit society as a whole.  In light of some of the challenges Bitcoin has faced, I've spent the past few years working on a secure path to broader scalability. Today I released a whitepaper detailing a novel approach. It can be found at https://xtal.network/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Crystal-Whitepaper-3.pdf

Abstract:

Blockchains hold great potential for connecting society, but struggle
to overcome the challenges of their ever-growing use. We propose an
enhanced design to address the present scalability hurdles. Leveraging
the fairness of fruit-chains, Crystal applies a high-performance block-type
coined ‘stems’ to harness real-time blockchain consensus. We conclude
with qualitative analysis showcasing optimal responsiveness and resilience
for the crystal blockchain protocol.

Feedback on the paper is greatly appreciated.

[Abstract]

*PLEASE NOTE* This is not an alt coin promotion (or announcement). The presented solution operates within Bitcoin's existing security model, and I was requesting feedback from the Bitcoin community at large. Not really sure why it was moved here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi there.

I've been an avid bitcoin-er for some time now, and found myself quite passionate regarding the potential of blockchain technology to benefit society as a whole.  In light of some of the challenges Bitcoin has faced, I've spent the past few years working on a secure path to broader scalability. Today I released a whitepaper detailing a novel approach. It can be found at https://xtal.network/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Crystal-Whitepaper-3.pdf

Here is the abstract for reference:


Abstract

Blockchains hold great potential for connecting society, but struggle
to overcome the challenges of their ever-growing use. We propose an
enhanced design to address the present scalability hurdles. Leveraging
the fairness of fruit-chains, Crystal applies a high-performance block-type
coined ‘stems’ to harness real-time blockchain consensus. We conclude
with qualitative analysis showcasing optimal responsiveness and resilience
for the crystal blockchain protocol.

Any feedback on our paper is greatly appreciated.

Hi there.

I want to put a bit of extra data (a file’s hash) in a Bitcoin transaction so it can be included in a time stamped block and potentially used as reference later. I hear theres been a lot of talk about taproot lately.
I was wondering What (if any) would be the benefits of using taproot scripts for this purpose vs OP_RETURN? Would it be cheaper per byte? Would my data be stored on chain directly with taproot or?

Also lastly I’d just like to say obviously I don’t understand taproot very much, other than it having something to do with segregated witness.

Thanks Everyone