A team of Bitcoin[1] (BTC) engineers has announced the launch of the Bitcoin Operations Technology Group (Bitcoin Optech) addressing the problem of Bitcoin’s scalability[2], according to their statement published[3] July 20.
Bitcoin Optech is a non-profit organization backed by leading industry players like PayPal[4] Board Member Wences Casares, executive of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Ltd John Pfeffer, and cryptocurrency research and development group Chaincode Labs.
At this stage, Bitcoin Optech focuses on “operational technical work, such as segwit[5] usage, transaction batching, fee estimation and coin selection,” helping companies integrate the rapidly developing technology.
Working closely with engineers from companies using the Bitcoin network and open-source developers, Bitcoin Optech seeks to give the scalability problem full consideration by holding workshops for Bitcoin engineers, hosting an online forum for technical scaling issues, and producing a weekly newsletter.
One proposed solution to Bitcoin’s scalability issue[6] — driven by the continuous growth of the network’s transaction numbers — is the Lightning Network[7] (LN), a second layer payment option that allows transactions to occur off the blockchain[8].
A recent study[9] suggesting that the Lightning Network is not as effective at routing payments as was first believed was refuted[10] by the LN co-founders and BTC developers, who noted that the Lightning Network is still in beta testing.
In mid-July, crypto payment gateway CoinGate launched[11] a pilot program for 100 merchants to test transactions on a Bitcoin Lightning Network variant of their service.
References
- ^ Bitcoin (cointelegraph.com)
- ^ scalability (cointelegraph.com)
- ^
