[2017-12-24] What Lightning Network Means For The Future Of Bitcoin

[Terraformer]

Summary

- As a currency, bitcoin faces major problems with its transaction speed, which if left unaddressed can limit bitcoin's potential.

- The Lightning Network will address bitcoin's scalability issues, allowing for instant payments with low fees.

- A successful implementation improves the long term outlook of bitcoin's valuation.

Bitcoin's Scalability Problems

Many people believe that bitcoin is the future of our financial system. But there is a big issue standing in the way of this goal, and that is scalability.

Currently, bitcoin's network can only process a maximum of 10 transactions per second. In reality, the network only handles around 4 to 5 transactions per second, as 10 transactions per second is only a theoretical maximum under optimal conditions. Compare bitcoin's limitations to VISA or PayPal. Visa handles on average around 2,000 transactions per second, with a daily peak rate of 4,000 transactions per second. VISA has a peak capacity of 56,000 transactions per second; however they never actually use more than a third of this even during peak shopping periods. PayPal handles on average 10 million transactions per day for an average of 115 transactions per second.

As a result of bitcoin's relatively low maximum transaction speed, bitcoin keeps a large backlog of unconfirmed transactions, leading to a multitude of problems, including long transaction confirmation times and high transaction fees.

Clearly the main blockchain isn't very scalable. But as it turns out, it doesn't have to be. The community has come up with a new technique called the Lightning Network to solve the scalability issues. The key idea is that small and everyday transactions don't have to be stored on the main blockchain. This bypasses the 10 transaction per second limit and is also called the off-chain approach.

Lightning Network

The Lightning Network is a proposed solution to the bitcoin scalability problem. The network would use an off-chain protocol and is currently under development. It would feature a P2P system for making micropayments of digital cryptocurrency through a scale-free network of bidirectional payment channels without delegating custody of funds or trust to third parties.

Continue reading >> https://seekingalpha.com/article/4133695-lightning-network-means-future-bitcoin

[1Referee]

It's quite simple really, without Lightning Network, Bitcoin will remain something that people hoard and store for the long term. Negative aspect is that it will then distance itself greatly from further adoption, which is something that we just can't let happen. It's basically our only hope when it comes to Bitcoin being a mainstream asset that people of all financial classes can use on a day to day basis. More utility means that it attracts more people, and in this case more people means more money flowing into this ecosystem, so I am greatly looking forward to LN. Best case scenario would be to have LN operational before the end of 2018, but honestly, I am not sure how realistic this target really is.

[iamTom123]

We should be pushing for the full implementation of the Lightning Network as Bitcoin right now is now shooting itself on the foot. Many are now turned off with Bitcoin because what is happening right now is not what Bitcoin must be. The high cost of transaction fee and the time it took for the transfer is not at all what we really need and this is not what we expect Bitcoin should be. This is kind of insulting for the Bitcoin we learned to love and banked on. Compared to Visa and PayPal, it is faring poorly and something has to be done about it. The time has come and we hope that this time around there would be less politicking. Self-centered interests should be minimized if we are thinking of jumping into the future with Bitcoin otherwise we might as well go away and disband.

[J. Cooper]

It's quite simple really, without Lightning Network, Bitcoin will remain something that people hoard and store for the long term. Negative aspect is that it will then distance itself greatly from further adoption, which is something that we just can't let happen. It's basically our only hope when it comes to Bitcoin being a mainstream asset that people of all financial classes can use on a day to day basis. More utility means that it attracts more people, and in this case more people means more money flowing into this ecosystem, so I am greatly looking forward to LN. Best case scenario would be to have LN operational before the end of 2018, but honestly, I am not sure how realistic this target really is.

LN is making great professional and getting it deployed by the end of 2018 might be a very realistic goal to be fair. But do you think more people will spend bitcoin simply because the transactions are instantaneous and basically free? I think not. Sure the amount of micro transactions will increase and we will finally be able to get rid of the people constantly nagging about the fees and confirmation times. But I'm not convinced people will start spending more. Atleast I won't.

[Hexah]

This could be a good implementation for Bitcoin Network since there are so much transaction congestion until now and if this will be successful then it will really be a good future for Bitcoin. Hope that this would succeed so that many wouldn't doubt bitcoin in terms of its transaction speed and fees. Many big names giving there support on many altcoins right now and it turns out they pump up that much just like what McCafee endorsed on ReddCoin and Digibyte from yesterday.

[Harlot]

I hope that the Lightning Network will really do its expected purpose as Bitcoin is not looking as a payment method alternative right now. With the blockchain being congested with a lot of unconfirmed transactions it is making it unreasonable to use Bitcoin as some sort of money. Hopefully with the implementation of the LN it will be on par with VISA or even what Paypal brings into the consumers. Because dealing with Bitcoin to other people right now is really not appealing to do so.