Bitcoin Educator Eric Podwojski discusses how a particular cutting-edge engineering can assist BTC turn out to be “the real cryptocurrency of the world.”
In a believed-provoking Twitter thread from May 15, 2023, Eric Podwojski shed light on the inherent limits of Bitcoin as an each day currency. I introduce lightning network as a beacon that could revolutionize Bitcoin, permitting its widespread use as a international electronic payment method.
Podwojski dives into the heart of Bitcoin, a layer that preserves protection and decentralization but comes with its honest share of tradeoffs, particularly in micropayments. He commented on this scalability challenge, a mystery that the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, knew in 2009.
In his tweets, Podwojski embarked on a journey as a result of time, revisiting numerous attempts to remedy Bitcoin’s scaling challenge from 2011 to 2015. He highlighted the Lightning Network, an innovation proposed by developers Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja in 2015. He mentions efforts to deliver their idea to existence, like “c-lightning”, “eclair” and “lnd”.
Podwojski requires us back to 2016 when Poon, Dryja, Elizabeth Stark and Olaoluwa Osuntokun founded Lightning Labs. Their collective aim? Promote the implementation of lnd forward. It then discusses the challenge of advertising interoperability involving unique Lightning Network implementations. Resolution? The introduction of BOLT (Basis of Lightning Technology), a new protocol specification.
Fast-forward to late 2017 and Podwojski celebrates the to start with accurate client transaction as a result of the Lightning Network, produced achievable by Alex Bosworth, Head of Lightning Liquidity at Lightning Labs.
He reviews that by 2023, the network has grown exponentially. More than five,500 BTC, or above $150 million, is at the moment in the network.
Podwojski talks about the exponential development in the variety of Lightning nodes, from just one hundred in 2018 to above 18,000 in 2023. He notes that every new node improves the efficiency of the payment method.
Concluding his tweets, Podwojski envisions the way forward for Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. It refers to Hal Finney’s 2010 vision that Bitcoin is the reserve currency for banking institutions and that the Lightning Network allows productive digital money transactions. He highlighted current efforts by Lightning Labs and Fedi to create new protocols, reminding his followers that Bitcoin’s layout prioritizes protection and decentralization and that layers are becoming constructed on top rated of that. Bitcoin.