What’s an ‘Off-Chain’ Bitcoin Transaction, and Why Do They Matter?
A hypothetical exercise may have exposed some confusion in the community …
Recently I wrote an article, almost as a bit of fun, examining what would happen if a) all Americans received a second stimulus check of $1,200 and b) they all decided to spend it on bitcoin at the same time.
The article was purely theoretical and was designed to explore the impact of such an enormous influx of capital — and (importantly) transactions — on the Bitcoin network as it stands today.
Specifically, would the network be able to handle all that? What would happen to the price? What would happen afterwards? Would it even be possible?
The article was picked up by Forbes and used as a basis for a slightly broader version of the analysis by Billy Bambrough, so it gained some coverage in the press and social media platforms including Twitter and LinkedIn.
The short version of the conclusion (spoiler alert) was that — right now at least — it would be a disaster (among other things) for Bitcoin, as the network would simply not be able to handle it.
However, I was rather surprised to see a large number of comments about the article questioning those findings.
