The Beginning
Bitcoin started life as a fresh and promising new financial instrument in the world, proving truly revolutionary attributes that had never been available before. Peer to peer transactions at inexpensive rates and fast speeds were now possible without using such an intermediary as a bank. However the unique frills of the currency have somewhat lost their potency in the last couple of years with many other cryptocurrencies offering better and faster payment technologies, just as bitcoin's mass blockchain usage is making theirs slow and expensive.
Segwit 2.0 was released in an attempt to speed up the network transactions on the bitcoin blockchain but many exchanges and wallets have been slow or unresponsive to adopting the update. This has led to continuing inefficiencies within the bitcoin blockchain and has meant that Q4's influx of users have meant that micro transactions are totally impractical using Bitcoin.
There are certain wallets online that have the capability of allowing peer to peer transactions of Bitcoin on their own books, but of course this has it's own drawbacks too. The operation of such transaction systems is not decentralized, and therefore is diminishing the point of using the actual currency itself. However there is one emerging partition of Bitcoin's many hard forks that provides the ability to solve these problems.
So What is it?
It is the Lightning Network, and It aim's to make Bitcoin viable as a payment method again by scaling it's network as an upgrade for the Bitcoin blockchain. It will allow to people to create a channel of payment between each other, in which they can transfer funds of bitcoin on the decentralized and anonymous platform within seconds at zero costs. This channel when it has been utilized as long as the parties desire it can then be terminated and verified once closed.
The team and technology behinds the Lightning network is by far the most advanced the currency has encountered in a long time, and it has a very achievable outlook. tests have already successfully occurred on the Network and it will be ready to go by at least 2019. If this proves to be successful then it's just what Bitcoin will need in order to retain it's crown as king of the cryptocurrencies, as there is a lot of steep competition out there these days that offer swifter and more effective technologies.
Stay followed if you enjoyed the post, check out my last post about The Lightning Network and yesterday's post about smart glasses ICO Lucyd.
https://steemit.com/blockchain/@blockchainboom/lucyd-ico-2018-augmented-reality-smartglasses