{"id":86524,"date":"2025-08-06T19:47:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=86524"},"modified":"2025-08-06T19:47:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:47:43","slug":"the-lightning-issue-letter-from-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=86524","title":{"rendered":"The Lightning Issue: Letter From The Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lightning Issue: Letter From The Editor<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Bitcoin doesn\u2019t scale.<\/p>\n

That shouldn\u2019t be read to mean that Bitcoin, the asset<\/em>, or different ways to use<\/em> it don\u2019t scale. But Bitcoin\u2019s blockchain does not scale. This is a fundamental and undeniable reality of its architecture. We\u2019ve known this definitively since the Blocksize Wars (well, Bitcoiners have known this). Some people, such as James A. Donald \u2014 an anonymous cryptographer who was the first person to reply to Satoshi on the cryptography mailing list \u2014 and Hal Finney himself, knew this from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

It is not possible for every person on Earth to have to receive, verify and retransmit the transactions of every other person on the planet. The notion that this is a viable idea is actually quite insane.<\/p>\n

But this is fundamentally how Bitcoin works. Its security and integrity is only guaranteed through the process of every user receiving and verifying the activity that is processed on the blockchain. So how do we reconcile these two contradictory things?<\/p>\n

We find inventive ways to commit to transactions without using the blockchain, essentially \u201ccaching\u201d them until an appropriate time to actually engage in final settlement on-chain.<\/p>\n

The Lightning Network is the first and most mature example of a system designed to accomplish this reconciliation in a decentralized fashion.<\/p>\n

Lightning has not exactly evolved as we hoped it would \u2014 a pure end-user payments network \u2014 but it has undeniably demonstrated itself as the first viable second-layer scaling solution for Bitcoin. It might wind up becoming more of an aggregate settlement layer, or a network more suitable for businesses and services than end users (though not impossible for them to use), but it is so far a resounding success.<\/p>\n

It has been an absolute pleasure and honor to act as the Editor-in-Chief for this issue, as this topic is something very close to me personally. Bitcoin is something that must scale in order to create the positive and impactful change that I want to see it create.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to thank all the contributors and team members who have made this issue happen, and, most importantly, Aaron van Wirdum\u2019s stewardship and help during the process of passing the torch to me.<\/p>\n

I hope you all enjoy gaining a better understanding of one of the most important projects in this space since Bitcoin itself was launched.<\/p>\n

Shinobi<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss your chance to own The Lightning Issue<\/em><\/strong><\/a> \u2014 featuring an exclusive interview with Lightning co-creator Tadge Dryja. It dives deep into Bitcoin\u2019s most powerful scaling layer. Limited run. Only available while supplies last.<\/p>\n

This piece is the Letter from the Editor featured in the latest Print <\/a>edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Lightning Issue. We\u2019re sharing it here as an early look at the ideas explored throughout the full issue.<\/em><\/p>\n

This post The Lightning Issue: Letter From The Editor<\/a> first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine<\/a> and is written by Shinobi<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine The Lightning Issue: Letter From The Editor Bitcoin doesn\u2019t scale. That shouldn\u2019t be read to mean that Bitcoin, the asset, or different ways to use it don\u2019t scale. But Bitcoin\u2019s blockchain does not scale. This is a fundamental and undeniable reality of its architecture. We\u2019ve known this definitively since the Blocksize Wars (well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":86525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}