As Lightning gains rapid popularity, critics of off-chain Bitcoin scaling – specifically those who champion on-chain options such as Bitcoin Cash’s block size increases – have highlighted its inefficiencies as proof of limited capability.

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Lightning Network 'Really Does' Solve Bitcoin Scaling: Andreas Antonopoulos NEWS
LIGHTNING NETWORK ‘REALLY DOES’ SOLVE BITCOIN SCALING: ANDREAS ANTONOPOULOS
WILMA WOO | JUN 29, 2018 | 18:00

Andreas Antonopoulos has defended the Lightning Network as an optimal Bitcoin scaling solution, saying it is “naive” to assume that its current nascent state means it will fail to scale in future.

CRITICS ‘MISUNDERSTAND ENGINEERING’
Speaking as part of his regular Q&A sessions, the celebrated cryptocurrency educator and lecturer addressed criticism of Lightning, which remains in beta testing phase after its Bitcoin mainnet implementation first launched six months ago.

Summarizing the protocol’s perspectives, Antonopoulos said:

To say it is not possible ever because it is not possible today is to misunderstand how engineering works.

As Lightning gains rapid popularity, critics of off-chain Bitcoin scaling – specifically those who champion on-chain options such as Bitcoin Cash’s block size increases – have highlighted its inefficiencies as proof of limited capability.

ON-CHAIN SCALING LOSES OUT
As Bitcoinist reported Friday, pro-Bitcoin responses took Bitcoin Cash supporters to task over such criticisms, noting that even in its experimental phase, the Lightning Network can already process millions of transactions per second.

In future, as its technical abilities increase, the network will go far beyond that, says Antonopoulos – numbers of transactions which “you can’t even conceive of with a block size increase.”