Former Openbazaar Dev Chris Pacia Blasts Lightning Network: Experts Knew It Would Work 'Like Dog Sh*t'

Chris Pacia, the former lead developer of the now-defunct decentralized marketplace Openbazaar, has criticized the process that led to the proposal of Bitcoin’s lightning network (LN) as a scaling solution. Pacia stated that technical experts lied to the mainstream audience in the blocksize war’s framework, knowing that LN would work “like dog sh*t.”

Former Openbazaar Lead Dev States LN Weaknesses Were Hidden From the Mainstream

Chris Pacia, the former lead developer of Openbazaar, a defunct decentralized crypto marketplace, has explained how the shortcomings of Lightning Network (LN), a layer 2 scaling protocol for Bitcoin, were explicitly hidden during the so-called blocksize wars that led to Bitcoin’s hard fork.

According to Pacia, most of the general audience is not technically adept to evaluate the advantages and tradeoffs of raising Bitcoin’s block size or using LN as a scaling structure. Technical experts who spoke about the weaknesses of LN were censored and banned from distribution platforms, and their messages were also erased.

So, mainstream non-technical crypto actors Saifedean Ammous, Peter McCormack, Tone Vays, and Stephan Livera, had to rely on non-banned experts to explain their opinions.

However, amidst the blocksize wars, Pacia believes these experts knowingly lied to sway the mainstream crowd to their side. Pacia stated:

They knew lightning would work like dog sh*t. But it was considered a “noble lie” to win the blocksize wars.

Pacia is just one of many developers that have recently called out the LN due to the complexity of its inner workings, and how it would lead to centralization. Last year, Bitcoin dev Matt Corallo complained about the state of LN and stated it was “kind of a joke.” Longtime bitcoiner John Carvalho also lashed out against LN, declaring that “the design is kind of a joke.”

Others have referred to LN’s dwindling liquidity, which has touched sub-5,000 BTC lows, with the number of nodes and channels also decreasing during this last year.

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