Rick Falkvinge Says Bitcoin Lightning Network Will Never Be Production Ready

The Bitcoin Cash supporter Rick Falkvinge said that the Lightning Network (LN) will never be production ready. He has also said that it is a project “dead end for all intents and purposes.”

The Lightning Network is the off-chain scaling solution that Bitcoin (BTC) developers are working on to help Bitcoin scale. Bitcoin Cash is the digital currency that implemented scaling solutions on-chain.

Falkvinge Is Against The Lightning Network

Is not surprising to see that Falkvinge is against the Lightning Network. Most of Bitcoin Cash supporters and developers are against it. He said that the LN failed to provide solutions to some of the most important problems plaguing the Bitcoin network since 2017. He said that during a recently released video.

As he mentioned, the second layer solution for Bitcoin would never be ready. Falkvinge said that back in 2015 and 2016 the Lightning Network was six months away. However, in 2017, they announced that it was 18 months away. Until now, there is no clear information regarding the release date of the LN.

Falkvinge explained that the concept of Watch ower was wrong and that deploying watchtowers on the network to monitor on-chain transactions is unnecessary and complex. At the same time, he said that another important problem is related to the fact that users must be online to receive funds.

He has also talked about legal liability regarding transactions being processed using the Lightning Network. He mentioned that there is a legal liability associated with Lightning Network nodes. When a user on this LN deposits funds into a channel with another user, the individual starts behaving like a bank.

Another issue mentioned by Falkvinge is that there would be no cold storage for the Lightning Network.

According to the website 1ml.com, the Lightning Network has 7,599 nodes, 39,357 channels and network capacity of 1,048 BTC. Although Falkvinge has been criticizing the Lightning Network, the solution has been growing during the last months.