Author: Michael Naber 2015-06-27 17:25:14
Published on: 2015-06-27T17:25:14+00:00
Global network consensus is essential for recognizing that a transaction has occurred and is irreversible on a global network level. Off-chain solutions don't exhibit this characteristic, and therefore are not considered global network consensus networks. Bitcoin Core scales as O(N), where N is the number of transactions, and it's vital to meet the demand for global consensus technology effectively while achieving global consensus. Andresen and Hearn propose that businesses abandon global consensus technology and adopt trust technology instead. However, global consensus has inherently O(n^2) scaling with current approaches available, resulting in a fixed capacity system where access is mediated by supply and demand transaction fees.Off-chain solutions such as hub-and-spoke payment channels, Lightning, etc., enable users to use global consensus technology in much more efficient ways, leveraging a relatively small amount of global consensus to do large numbers of transactions trustlessly. It's crucial to keep the conversation focused on meeting the goal of Bitcoin Core, which is to achieve global consensus as effectively as possible.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T01:20:10.531379+00:00