The Lightning Network is a Layer 2 protocol for Bitcoin, specifically designed for cheap, fast and private payments. As an overlay network consisting of payment channels, Lightning payments are not recorded on Bitcoin’s blockchain — only channel-funding transactions and channel-closing transactions are. This effectively means that many Lightning transactions can be settled with much fewer…
Bitcoin is a network, a protocol, a groundbreaking technology and a culture in and of itself. But when it was first introduced by Satoshi Nakomoto in a 2008 white paper, Bitcoin was primarily designed as a way to revolutionize the buying, selling and transacting of value for the digital era. “What is needed is an…
Bitcoin means different things to different people. For some, it’s the future. For others, it is a speculative bubble about to burst any day now. And for most, Bitcoin is still a mysterious platform for internet money. Fully understanding Bitcoin and the changes it is bringing to our world can be a lifetime pursuit. But…
Bitcoin mixing services have adopted techniques to evade detection and effectively obfuscate user funds. Threats to these services and their user base exist. In response, the Bitcoin community and academic literature have proposed alternative methods to improve trust and eliminate these threats. In this chapter, we discuss the general architecture of four decentralized and four…
