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Bitcoin Lightning Network has Failed
The Lightning Network cannot scale Bitcoin to mass adoption. Payment channel technology, like Lightning, requires management via the L1. So that means users must make L1 transactions in order to manage their L2 channels. Therefore the L2 is bottlenecked by the L1. Therefore Lightning cannot actually handle global/mass adoption.
Not only that, Bitcoin itself cannot handle mass adoption. Even if it were only being used as "digital gold" (buy once and hold forever), it would still take 100 years(!) to onboard the world to the Bitcoin L1 — which is a pre-requisite to moving to the L2.
So the L1 is too slow to support its L2, and the L1 is too slow to handle mass adoption in any case. The current trajectory then is to "scale" Bitcoin via custodial services that offer users IOUs. These are banks! This is our current system! If this is the outcome then the whole project will have failed, because there's no way to stop these custodial services from engaging in fractional reserve and breaking the 21 million supply hardcap! No to mention other rent-seeking behavior.
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By Jordan McKinneyThe Lightning Network cannot scale Bitcoin to mass adoption. Payment channel technology, like Lightning, requires management via the L1. So that means users must make L1 transactions in order to manage their L2 channels. Therefore the L2 is bottlenecked by the L1. Therefore Lightning cannot actually handle global/mass adoption.
Not only that, Bitcoin itself cannot handle mass adoption. Even if it were only being used as "digital gold" (buy once and hold forever), it would still take 100 years(!) to onboard the world to the Bitcoin L1 — which is a pre-requisite to moving to the L2.
So the L1 is too slow to support its L2, and the L1 is too slow to handle mass adoption in any case. The current trajectory then is to "scale" Bitcoin via custodial services that offer users IOUs. These are banks! This is our current system! If this is the outcome then the whole project will have failed, because there's no way to stop these custodial services from engaging in fractional reserve and breaking the 21 million supply hardcap! No to mention other rent-seeking behavior.