Thunderbolt protocol: Reshaping Bitcoin scalability and challenging the Lightning Network dilemma

Bitcoin Scalability New Solution Thunderbolt: Reshaping Lighting Network Design Logic

1. Bitcoin Payment Dilemma

Although Bitcoin has characteristics such as "decentralization" and "immutability", it faces many challenges in everyday payment scenarios. Issues such as long transaction confirmation times and high transaction fees make it impractical to use Bitcoin for small purchases like coffee. The conservative script structure of the Bitcoin network also limits most off-chain interaction scenarios, failing to meet people's demand for fast small payments.

Revisiting the design logic of the Bitcoin Lightning Network from Thunderbolt

2. Lighting Network: Advantages and Limitations

The Lighting Network, as a scaling solution for Bitcoin, achieves high-frequency bookkeeping by establishing exclusive "payment channels" between users, only synchronizing the final state to the blockchain when the channel is closed. This model is similar to a regular settlement method between friends, rather than transferring funds immediately after each transaction.

However, the Lighting Network has exposed multiple dilemmas in practical applications:

  • The threshold for channel construction is high, requiring funds to be locked in advance.
  • Complex routing issues lead to a high transaction failure rate
  • Users need to stay online to prevent fraud, which is too demanding for ordinary users.

These structural defects make it difficult for the Lighting Network to break through application bottlenecks. Currently, the total amount of funds locked in the network is only about 100 million USD, which is negligible compared to Bitcoin's trillion-dollar market value.

Revisiting the design logic of the Bitcoin Lighting Network from the Thunderbolt Network

Three, Introduction to the Thunderbolt Protocol

Thunderbolt is a soft fork upgrade solution based on the Bitcoin base layer, making changes directly at the protocol level of the Bitcoin main chain to enhance scalability, transaction performance, and programmability.

Main features include:

  • Using UTXO Bundling technology, the transaction speed is increased by about 10 times.
  • Reintroduce and expand the OP_CAT opcode to support more complex script logic.
  • Launched Goldinals unified asset standard, based on zero-knowledge proofs and state commitments
  • Implement BitMM on-chain automated market maker system

Unlike traditional scaling approaches, Thunderbolt adopts the "native on-chain scaling" path, where all functions run directly on the Bitcoin main chain, using native BTC instead of cross-chain tokens.

3.1 Core Mechanism Analysis

The core mechanism of Thunderbolt includes:

  • Flexible and adjustable multi-signature
  • Asynchronous fault-tolerant committee ledger
  • Atomic Swap Finalization

These designs ensure the security and decentralization of transactions.

3.2 Protocol Design and Key Innovations

The main innovations of Thunderbolt are:

  • Non-interactive, recursive signature delegation
  • Each transfer uses a "new lock"
  • Leave a trace on the chain only once
  • You won't lose money offline.
  • Security verified through formal verification

Revisiting the design logic of Bitcoin's Lightning Network from the Thunderbolt network

4. Comparison with Existing Lighting Network Solutions

Compared to existing solutions like the BOLT protocol and Breez SDK, Thunderbolt has advantages in security and theoretical completeness. It can prove the security of protocol design and ensure that malicious users cannot profit unilaterally.

However, Thunderbolt also faces some challenges:

  • Deployment is complex, making it difficult for ordinary users to get started.
  • The compatibility issues of the main chain increase the difficulty of implementation.
  • The ecological support is still not完善.

Revisiting the design logic of Bitcoin Lightning Network from Thunderbolt Network

5. The Potential Impact and Development Path of Thunderbolt

Although Thunderbolt is theoretically close to the optimal solution of BTCFi, its actual application is still in the early stages. Possible development paths include:

  1. Integrated through Rollup, serving as the DeFi engine on the Bitcoin side.
  2. Form an independent standard ecosystem, running in parallel with the main chain.
  3. Replaced by a simpler solution

The greatest significance of the Thunderbolt is to grant Bitcoin assets "off-chain contract composability." The introduction of the two major features of UTXO Bundling and OP_CAT has brought native programmability and higher on-chain throughput to the Bitcoin network. This provides the possibility for unifying various protocols and assets in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but there is still a certain distance to widespread application by developers.

Revisiting the Design Logic of Bitcoin Lightning Network from Thunderbolt

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Web3Educatorvip
· 07-10 15:01
hmm... thunderbolt might just solve what my students struggled with in ln channels tbh
Reply0
ForkLibertarianvip
· 07-09 00:46
The Lighting Network is no longer appealing, this wave of air thunder is here.
View OriginalReply0
BanklessAtHeartvip
· 07-07 17:34
Another L2 solution!
View OriginalReply0
GateUser-1a2ed0b9vip
· 07-07 15:25
It’s better to use Alipay.
View OriginalReply0
GasFeeNightmarevip
· 07-07 15:20
There is another new expansion plan, attempt failed warning.
View OriginalReply0
OnchainGossipervip
· 07-07 15:20
Can Old Lei's move reduce the death rate of LN?
View OriginalReply0
DegenRecoveryGroupvip
· 07-07 15:07
Lightning turns into thunder, a genius in naming, fully understood.
View OriginalReply0
GigaBrainAnonvip
· 07-07 15:05
Another new gadget has come, it's really competitive now.
View OriginalReply0
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