Author: Eric Lombrozo 2015-06-29 00:59:40
Published on: 2015-06-29T00:59:40+00:00
The discussion about the Lightning Network and its potential to scale Bitcoin algorithmically instead of increasing block size continues. Some argue that the Lightning Network is nothing but a whitepaper and we are far from a practical implementation supported by even one wallet. However, others believe that lightning does need a decentralized and secure Bitcoin network for anchor and reclaim transactions, so it's better to have a shorter, more conservative block-size increase to give a few years room rather than rising to 8GB with unrealistic bandwidth growth assumptions that will surely cause centralization problems. The Lightning Network is a source-routed network, not a broadcast network, and fees are charged on channels, so DoS is just a way to pay people a multiple of bandwidth cost. If micro-payments get popular, the number of transactions per anchor transaction could reach 1000 or 10,000 transactions. Lightning + a decentralized and secure Bitcoin scales further and is more trustless than Bitcoin forced into centralization via premature mega-blocks. Something to mention is you can elide transactions before reclaiming.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T01:20:45.623155+00:00