It seems like really great technology ideas put into practice either feel so outlandish that they are ignored, and cast aside as not worth consideration, or they are so subtle and boring that they don't get the attention they deserve.
I think Lightning Network may fall in the second category, and I wonder what other technology entrepreneurs out there think about this.
Bitmex Labs has created a six part series on the origins of Lightning Network, how it operates and how it is being used. You can find a lot of interesting things in this report.
Here are my top line summary thoughts about this future-forward technology that seems really boring at first.
The most interesting thing for me is that Lightning Network is considered a payment solution that allows private parties to engage in payments without having all of those payments broadcast on-chain for the entire network to see. In this "trustless" revolution, it seems to enable trusted parties to do business together.
It also enables parties who don't trust each other or know each other to do business together, because its connection to the blockchain and the ability to broadcast transactions when necessary safeguard against fraud and malfeasance.
I can't help but think of banking, when I read about this. Rather, a more personal type of banking, where the user / consumer controls his or her own channel for operations, making the idea of traditional banks seem a tad bit irrelevant.
Banking is really the business of trusted exchange and contracts. It seems like Lightning Network opens the door for real peer to peer banking. All the contract operations and connections seem to be there to validate things like escrow, loans, financing, exchange of currencies, payment of contracts, mortgages, etc.
As a relative newbie to this work, I could be wrong. If I am, please tell me.
The lesson for founders here is that it's okay to work on things that are not getting a lot of attention and that are boring or little understood. Sometimes those are the things that create long term value in the end.
https://blog.bitmex.com/the-lightning-network/
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https://appworks.tw/accelerator
Doug Crets
Communications Master, AppWorks
Images courtesy of Flickr on BitMex Blog
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