Here’s why
While the pressure for and to reach scalability and mass is intense, not all is fair and well.
The growth of the Lightning Network has been remarkable. But there’s a catch.
What Pompliano, Klaus Lovgreen, John Carvalho, Marty Bent, , Elizabeth Stark of Lightning Labs and even Jack Dorsey don’t tell you, is pretty serious.
bitcoin won’t be Decentralized with the Lightning Network
The danger is obvious, the Lightning Network will effectively transforming the largest in the world into an internationally centralized payment network like Visa and Mastercard.
A few whales will profit and the likes of Square Cash, Microsoft, Bakkt and Fidelity will thrive with ’s new popularity, but it won’t be the we once knew.
The cult of and the art of HODLing, really favors a few and that’s centralized. It doesn’t matter if some aspects of are decentralized if ownership of the scarce digital assets are centralized.
It’s no coincidence via the Lightning Network will benefit primarily people in the Silicon Valley, while ignoring the hardworking miners, and node operators, among others. Silicon Valley enjoys doing this over and over.
When thinks and people think the Lightning Network is ’s future, it’s good for the price of , but not good for the future of as decentralized.
The Lightning Network is Deeply Flawed
The Lightning Network is not a “Scaling Solution”, it’s more like a system for a few to profiteer on its popularity and staying power.
With the Lightning Network, anyone who is connected to the Lightning Network can pay anyone else who is also connected to the Lightning Network, but that sidesteps the decentralized nation of itself. While the solution makes a business case for mass , the price is very steep: a decentralized future for .
It’s a bit like Facebook’s stablecoin project Libra program creating a payment system for Indians on WhatsApp, but tethered to fiat, it’s a crypto clone without the decentralized aspect of being a real .
The addition of the second-layer protocol payments systems is a hype train that offers convenience while sacrificing the true nation of .
The Lightning Network Reincarnates bitcoin in a Centralized System
Visa and Mastercard are ironically, the two original corporations that Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to eradicate when he created . However the Lightning Network so far as I can tell simply clones those sorts of systems with as the digital currency of choice. Tell me if I’m wrong?
is perceived to be a modern day equivalent to gold as consumers holding it prefer to profit from its price increase rather than spend it on products and goods that could be purchased via fiat currencies.
Facebook trying to clone a stablecoin for its internal walled garden that monetizes itself through advertising is very much like Silicon Valley tech people trying to create a Lightning Network to utilize accord to their claims on its future.
Lightning may represent the ‘next level’ of payments using , but it also likely will lead to its eventual demise. This is because it scales it without maintaining its original spirit.
It’s a bit like listening to Joseph Lubin talk about what will become. The Lightning Network builds a payment channel based on cryptographic algorithms, enables on-chain resources only to be consumed when the channel is established or closed. That’s not really compatible with the open and decentralized nature of itself.
The Lightning Network creates a system that effectively kills . That is, if the Lightning Network scales “ is as good as dead,” and such a Lightning Network will fundamental lead to its demise, where just a few people and businesses can maximize their short-term profits.
Published at Sat, 18 May 2019 03:57:22 +0000