Yes, I agree there are many different projects worth mentioning and I will write an article discussing the ones I consider to be the most promising, their advantages and problems. But for now, let’s focus on Bitcoin. Not because of price, but due to adoption: no other cryptocurrency has as many users, developers and infrastructure support. Maybe Ethereum, which is closing in, but still Bitcoin is the most widely spread cryptocurrency and the base layer for the entire market.
Today I will be discussing ways bitcoin is being improved and infrastructure changes happening in the near future, that can potentially help by lowering fees, by improving ease-of-use, by creating off-chain payments solutions or simply by adding more transactions to each block. There are ways of implementing each solution separately, but some core technology must be widely adopted, like Segregated Witnessing (SegWit).
There will be three main topics I will approach today: batching, schnorr signatures and atomic swaps. I’ve been discussing the Lightning Network too much and I want to check different potential solutions, less prone to centralization.
Speaking of the devil, that’s definitely one of the features I believe we should be trying to avoid. Bitcoin’s purpose is to be fully decentralized, so any action, update or improvement that won’t go in that direction should be disregarded.