i love lightning. it's fully secured bitcoin that's fast and cheap
but "cheap" means a few on-chain transactions and an always-on, always connected device. that's trivial for you and me to run today, but is already too expensive for most of the world
and even if you're willing to accept this, what happens as more people actually use bitcoin, and fees begin to overtake block rewards? that's a future where a single on-chain transaction costs around a hundred times as much in fees as one today. would you open a lightning channel if it cost "a mere" $300, except in high-fees environments, where it cost ten times that?
what bitcoin needs to become a global electronic cash system is scalability. lightning provides some of this, but only enough for millions of participants. other layer 2's easily provide scalability, but sacrifice the trustlessness that's essential to bitcoin
this is exactly why i've proposed something different – a network of ledgers and collateral. it replaces proof of work with slashing. yes, that's kind of weird. but with that weirdness comes a lot of nice things – free openings, low transaction fees, no availability requirements or liquidity management
does it work? i think so, but no one seems to be taking it seriously. i can make a few guesses why, but they're still copouts.
lightning
doesn't
scale
and someone needs to do something about that.
here's my hat in the ring:
abstract
Bitcoin Deposits: A Layer 2 Scaling Protocol
