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Elon Musk Says Lightning Network 'Needed' to Scale Bitcoin for Now
A single-layer network like Bitcoin's could carry all humans transactions in the future, the Tesla CEO tweeted Friday.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:59 p.m. Published May 21, 2021, 8:57 a.m. 1 min read
Elon Musk has jumped into the bitcoin scaling debate on Twitter, saying the layer 2 payments Lightning Network is "needed" for now.
- "Layer count depends on projected bandwidth & compute, both rising rapidly, which means single layer network [e.g. Bitcoin alone] can carry all human transactions in future imo," the Tesla CEO tweeted Friday.
- Until then, however, Lightning will be necessary to provide the required bandwidth, he argued.
- The Lightning Network is a layer atop the Bitcoin blockchain designed to enable faster and cheaper transactions by enabling user-generated channels for sending and receiving payments.
Achieving truly decentralized finance – power to the people – is a noble & important goal.
— Name (@elonmusk) May 21, 2021
Layer count depends on projected bandwidth & compute, both rising rapidly, which means single layer network can carry all human transactions in future imo.
For now, Lightning is needed.
- Musk has also been responding to a Twitter discussion about bitcoin's energy usage, the reason cited for Tesla's recent U-turn on accepting the cryptocurrency as a method of payment.
- He proposed that the top-10 mining organizations post audits of the amount of renewable energy used in their operations as one way to tackle the issue.
See also: Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Now Has 10K Active Nodes and $69M in Locked Value
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