Lightning is Bitcoin’s cypherpunk secret passageway
The buzzlessness might have been the second layer on Bitcoin’s signal
Bitcoin transactions can be fairly private if people want to do a bit of work. All it takes is shifting to the Lightning network and making some friends.
The Lightning Network, as you probably know, is the favorite scaling solution for Bitcoin. It’s a way of transacting on Bitcoin in less than a second (rather than the 10 minutes it takes for a transaction on-chain), if conditions are right. It’s a bit of a mess, it’s highly technical and, this is what I want you to come away with today, it’s not like anything else out there in the crypto world.
In fact, as I set out to report out what’s going on with Lightning right now, I was struck by a beautiful realization that made my cypherpunk heart sing a trill of joy.
We may never really know how successful Lightning actually is.
O Frabjous day. Callooh. Callay.
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It has appeared, for a very long time…