In a panel discussion at the Bitcoin 2023 conference moderated by CNBC technology reporter Mackenzie CigalusLeaders from some of the largest services building businesses based on the Lightning Network discuss the opportunities and challenges of a Layer 2 protocol focused on Bitcoin payments.
Discussion featured “Building Native Lightning Companies” Elizabeth StarkCEO of software development company Lightning Labs; David MarcusChief Executive Officer lightsparkInc., a company focused on making Lightning adoption easier and more accessible; And Miles Souterthe Bitcoin producer leads in Cash applicationa mobile payment platform that has provided lighting payments to more than 40 million users in 2022.
“We’re really at the point where Lightning is maturing and we’re seeing more and more adoption,” Stark said, summarizing the momentum she’s seen since she co-founded Lightning Labs in 2016. Because it solves real problems for them.”
By allowing peers to create closed payment channels between themselves, which are only settled on the underlying bitcoin blockchain upon closing, the Lightning Network enables bitcoin payments that can take place in seconds while still benefiting from the security of the underlying bitcoin ledger. But such a second class relatively smallrepresents accreditation Just break One of the largest volume of digital payments worldwide.
Panelists highlighted the importance of developing products and services that make Lightning easier to use and solve some outstanding issues, such as the network’s relatively low fluidity and limited number of nodes.
“The channel-based payment network is still very complex,” Cigalos noted. “There is not a lot of liquidity on the contract at the moment” for example.
In response, Sutter noted that many of the challenges in facilitating access to Lightning stem from Bitcoin’s most important qualities.
He explained, “It’s difficult to develop with Bitcoin. We see it every day… but it’s an intentional decision because we believe that’s what allows it to maintain a minimal attack surface.”
But the panelists all agreed that when there are big problems for Lightning to solve, like in countries that can help people access dollars or enable more efficient cross-border transactions, adoption is clear. As more of these issues arise and companies like this continue to build products and services on top of Lightning, they expect adoption to accelerate.
“Making it easier will lead to more adoption,” Marcus said. “Between now and next year when we meet again, we’ll be in a much better place when it comes to Lightning adoption.”