- How do you see the broader mass adoption
of the lightning network in the future?
The broader mass adoption of the lightning network
will happen through the primary user interface
and the primary user interfaces wallets.
This is exactly the same issue we have
with every other blockchain.
A blockchain is only as good, is only as capable
and its features advanced only as fast
as its most popular wallets do,
and a feature that you wrote in the protocol
that isn't in the wallet is a feature that doesn't exist
as far as the users are concerned.
A feature that you wrote that is in a wallet,
but it's too difficult to use
is a feature that doesn't exist
as far as users are concerned.
So the frontline of development of any blockchain
or layer two network is the development
of the wallet technology itself.
The more sophisticated the wallets are,
the better the user interfaces are,
the more they are able to abstract the difficult parts
and complex parts of this technology
and make it appear simple to users,
the more successful they will be.
If you followed previous technology development
over open protocols,
you will see the same trends everywhere.
The very early web browsers were a mess,
and they had a lot of the difficulties
of the underlying protocol being reflected
in the user's face and made it very, very difficult
to use web browsers for certain types of applications.
Imagine when you're waiting for the latency
of a reload of an entire page over TCP
in order to move your map one-inch to the right
when you're mapping.
That's how maps worked in the beginning,
if you don't remember it, congratulations,
you're younger than I am, but I certainly remember it.
Web browsers were difficult to use,
and nowadays, it's not that the backend protocols
got significantly faster or significantly better,
it's just that the browser has buried that complexity.
Browsers have become infinitely more complex
and sophisticated,
and they present an infinitely simpler interface
to the users by hiding that complexity
and also managing the complexity of the underlying protocols
to make the user's life easier.
That is a very difficult task.
It requires a lot of sophistication and user interface,
user experience design,
as well as the management of very large software projects,
and still, in the Bitcoin and lightning space,
we're still in the very, very early days,
but you can already see the trends.
The lightning wallets are getting much better,
just like the Bitcoin wallets got much better
over several iterations
and the better and simpler a wallet gets to use,
the easier it is for people to use.
Now the other thing is the fact that in the longterm,
I expect that wallets will completely hide
the difference between Bitcoin and lightning,
but wallet shouldn't need to tell the user
what channels they have,
what balance they have in the channels,
whether the channels are properly balanced,
whether the payment they're making is on-chain or off-chain,
whether the wallets is rebalancing channels in the backend
or any of that.
All of that should be hidden.
You say, I want to pay this recipient
by scanning a QR code and your wallet figures out
if the payment is going to be over Bitcoin,
if it's going to be over the lightning network,
if channels need to be created or rebalanced
in order to effectuate that payment,
how long it's going to take,
what fee it's going to take
and act accordingly,
invisibly in the background
and some lightning wallets already doing that.
So in the future,
I expect the user experience will effectively be seamless.
You scan a QR code, you say pay
and your wallet figures out the rest
just like a modern web browser does
when it comes to the underlying HTTP, TCP and IP protocols.
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