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Introduction - Reason for asking this question

With most of the money in the cryptocurrency domain still being utilized in transactions on crypto-exchanges and the numerous hacks that have previously occurred, centralization of the exchanges and their respective wallets have become a major concern.

Though centralization can resolve a lot of issues currently present in the blockchain (majorly referring to bitcoin while addressing this question), there are highly potent second-layer technologies that can achieve the same in a decentralized fashion.

Lighning Network - theQuestion

While being a second-layer (and not requiring a hard-fork for implementation) technology that solves the use case of micro bitcoin payments and further reducing (probably) the transaction fees, LN (from its documentation) champions the possibility of micro-payment/transactions and fast confirmations, while keeping the block size same and also bringing bitcoin payments to the level of mainstream adaptation as a medium of universal payments.

It also solves the problem of the evergrowing transactions record-keeping (heavy storage memory consumption) by not recording useless intermediary transactions on the blockchain.

Schnorr probably is also a viable solution for the block size optimization

Though the implementation of this second layer technology was/is heavily dependent on SegWit (malleability) and MultiSig and that being resolved, what are the major roadblocks for the LN to make it to the bitcoin core?

Ref: Does segwit solve malleability of the witness part?

Second Layer Development and Inclusion (optional extended question)

How does one determine the viability of a second layer technology being included in the bitcoin core and what are the pre-requisites that are to be met for inclusion?

Ref: How thoroughly has Segregated Witness been tested?

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Junaid Shaikh
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  • Lightning network is already available on mainnet, so it is included (see here: https://lnmainnet.gaben.win --> +2000 nodes, with ~6000 channels). What do you mean by layer 2 development and inclusion? Perhaps be a bit more specific? Is it applications, that work "on the bitcoin blockchain"? – pebwindkraft Jun 03 '18 at 08:28
  • Yes, I actually meant applications that work on the bitcoin blockchain. – Junaid Shaikh Jun 03 '18 at 09:57
  • The chances of LN being included in what? – Pieter Wuille Jun 03 '18 at 18:15
  • The chances of LN being included as part of the bitcoin-core and hence compelling people (still centralized exchanges and other outer-layer financial institutes) to upgrade their systems to a truly decentralized one. There's a high chance that I may have missed out on some important information or misunderstood, it has only been a month since I started and the extent/depth of information is overwhelming. Please pardon my misunderstandings, if any. – Junaid Shaikh Jun 03 '18 at 23:17
  • Not knowing how comment notifications actually work, tagging you @PieterWuille Sir, so that you may be notified. – Junaid Shaikh Jun 04 '18 at 11:33
  • Perhaps split your question up into separate ones; they're not all that related. – Pieter Wuille Jun 04 '18 at 17:19
  • @PieterWuille Sir, I have edited the question to rephrase what I actually intended to ask. Since you have been through the process of a successful release in the bitcoin core v0.13 followed by rigorous testing for about a year and a half, concluding with a 20 core-member review before the mainstream adoption of SegWit, I think your answer could be enlightening. The decision of avoiding a hard-fork with the implementation of the block size being increased (SegWit2x ?), would probably be my next topic to research on. – Junaid Shaikh Jun 08 '18 at 06:21

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