The beginning of a new decade is propitious to assess the improvements that await Bitcoin. A simpler use will make the technical complexities of Bitcoin transparent to the public.
The beginning of a new decade, which coincides with the eleventh anniversary of Bitcoin, is a propitious time to take stock of the evolution of its technology and its advances, as well as to predict its development in the immediate future.
In a recent thread on Twitter, Bitcoin Core developer John Newberry mentioned several of the improvements to Bitcoin technology, some of them still under development, which will provide it with more privacy and at the same time facilitate its use and adoption.
The end of the decade is a good opportunity to look back and marvel at the great advances that Bitcoin has made since Satoshi released the White Paper in 2008, according to Newberry. He adds that the current moment is a natural point to weigh what Bitcoin will bring in the coming years.
Newberry refers to the fact that the three main implementations of Lightning Network ─Eclair, c-lightning and LND─ are going through a good moment in terms of frequent updating and he highlights that the three meet the basic aspects of multi-path payments, which are payments in Lightning Network divided into two or more parts and sent by different channels.
This is an important advance as it allows a user to overcome the limited capacity of the channels and spend most of his or her funds, regardless of the number of channels that must be opened to make his or her payment.
Improvements in multi-path payments, together with the splicing technique or modification of the balance of the channels through transfers between on-chain outlets and payment channels will facilitate liquidity and channel management, as Newberry notes.
These technologies together will make channel and liquidity management easier. They will be automated and blended into the environment, which will make the user experience improve drastically.
In general, the Lightning Network infrastructure will continue improving, says Newberry. Bitfinex recently added to its platform the ability to make payments to and withdrawals from that micropayment network. The developer explains that all other exchange houses, merchant service providers, custodians, and wallets will follow this trend or risk becoming become obsolete.
He adds that new Lightning wallets will emerge: a mixture of self-custody, non-custody with third-party route management, as well as fully self-managed wallets. He believes that this is a completely new space, where there will be a lot of experimentation and different niches to develop. He mentions as an example the cases of wallets such as @MuunWallet, @Breez_Tech, and @PhoenixWallet, among others, which are already experimenting with different self-management models.
Newberry mentions many other improvements in Bitcoin technology that are currently under development, such as the search for greater interoperability of wallets, extended and cheaper mixing services, which, together with the advances already mentioned, would leave the functions that it performs perfectly in the blockchain, while other functionalities move to a second layer.
By Willmen Blanco
