In Part I of this article we explored how so-called ‘Lighting Networks’ might make bitcoin both more convenient and less costly to use, but at the cost of sacrificing its decentralised nature, a key feature for many advocates. If bitcoin use thus coalesces into networks with some degree of centralisation, then bitcoin will need to compete as a monetary alternative with other potential stores of value that also trade in such fashion.
So what might those alternatives be? Other digital coins come to mind, or tokens backed by real assets of some kind. Bitcoin might have a first-mover advantage as the first blockchain-based digital currency, but as with most technologies over the past decades, those holding great promise and huge first-mover advantages tend to succumb to one or more successor technologies over time. And the best technologies do not always win in their own time, much less the future. Think Betamax for example.
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