How Bitcoin solves the Blockchain Trilemma

When, in 2017, the bitcoin community activated SegWit, thus enabling second-tier solutions such as the Lightning Network, the cryptocurrency world changed.

The protocol created on top of Bitcoin to solve the scalability problem has allowed the cryptocurrency to answer one of the questions that plague the world of Blockchain. We try to analyze the relationship between these two protocols and how one is strictly necessary for the other to create, on paper, a perfect ecosystem.

What is Lightning Network (LN)?

Lightning Network is the solution of the level (or layer) 2 of Bitcoin that allows almost instant transactions, with very low costs, based on the idea of ​​a two-way channel. Like the underlying Blockchain, it is equipped with peer-to-peer exchanges which, however, allow you to exchange money even in a network of channels that do not delegate the custody of funds. The transactions are off-chain, apart from the first and last which serve as “certification” of the balance for all the others.