In 2020, Bitcoin (BTC) was the hallmark ‘store of value’ asset. In 2022, that tag has steadily been replaced with a ‘medium of exchange’ among the masses. The fundamental stability & security of the Bitcoin blockchain is one facet behind this maturing. The other is the emergence of the Lightning Network, a Layer-2 protocol that seeks to speed up transaction processing times and decrease the associated costs of Bitcoin’s blockchain.
Lightning Labs is the blockchain startup that’s leading the development of this revolutionary infrastructure. During a huge announcement last week, they revealed a new protocol named Taro, which seeks to widen the range of assets supported by the Lightning Network while maximising speed and security.
Lightning Labs unveils Taro, to ‘bitcoinise the dollar’
Founded in 2016 by Elizabeth Stark (CEO) and Olaoluwa Osuntokun (CTO), and with a staff of less than thirty, Lightning Labs is the primary developer of the Lightning Network.
On April 5, 2022, Ryan Gentry, Business Development Lead at Lightning Labs, announced their brand-new protocol Taro. Taro, which was designed by Osuntokun, seeks to ‘bitcoinise the dollar’, enabling all Lightning Network participants to gain the benefit of the Lightning Network’s nearly free, virtually instant, global transaction capabilities, while escaping Bitcoin’s volatility. It came about thanks to November 2021’s Taproot update, which increased the Bitcoin blockchain’s capacity for more sophisticated smart contracts.
Source: Lightning Labs
In a blog post, Lightning Labs CEO Stark explained the motivation for the Taro project:
“One of our core tenets at Lightning Labs is solving real problems for real people, and we’ve talked to myriad community members in emerging markets who’ve told us what a big difference stablecoins on bitcoin and Lightning would make in their economies. Taro makes sending assets like these possible using the bitcoin network with the instant, high volume, low fee nature of Lightning.” writes Stark.
“This technology can and will power a whole host of opportunities in emerging markets. Instead of a bank account, people only need access to a mobile phone to tap into the native monetary network of the internet. And we can enable them to leapfrog the legacy financial system for something that is far superior — open, global, and interoperable.“
The following segment is a first-hand look at Taro’s functionality, although Gentry covers the technical details in further detail in his announcement post here.
Source: Lightning Labs
Taro will be a pivotal protocol in the pursuit of providing people in regions of financial instability (eg. the global unbanked population) with a useful payment solution. While Bitcoin itself provides that to some degree, it comes with the downside of volatility – which isn’t ideal for low socioeconomic status populations or those that live paycheck to paycheck. Taro solves this issue, by allowing users to turn the dial up or down on their exposure to volatility. This is further backed in the post, in which Gentry mentions that Lightning labs have received a high number of requests to integrate stablecoins for countries in Latin America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, and Brazil) and West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana).
Gentry mentions in the post that Lightning Labs has received a high number of requests to integrate stablecoins for countries in Latin America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, and Brazil) and West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana). In countries where intermediaries require high fees for payments, Lightning Labs sees this as an opportunity to integrate stablecoins and other assets for instant and cheap settlements with Lightning.
Lightning Network usage increases
The Lightning Network has seen significant growth in usage over the past 30 days, with the number of unique nodes reaching an all-time high of 83,930, with only minor declines. As more updates like Taro are released, Lightning Network will likely become the transaction method of choice.
Source: BitcoinVisuals
