How to scale Bitcoin: A payment network that no one controls

This chapter presents the inner workings of the Bitcoin network analyzes the parameters that need to be addressed in order to scale Bitcoin. The chapter describes the several major options that have been developed to scale Bitcoin, and also analyzes the how a decentralized peer-to-peer network is upgraded in practice. The community organizes themselves through the use of online forums such as Bitcointalk, Reddit, and Github, as well as real-life conferences and meetups. Bitcoin is a remarkable technology that has already created a new paradigm in the way humans are able to organize everything from day-to-day business contracts to international trade deals. The main alternative in the Bitcoin scaling debate is a conservative solution under the name of Segregated Witness that comes bundled with a completely novel approach called the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a continuation of a process that treats Bitcoin more and more as a settlement network than as a payment system.