What’s Next for the Bitcoin Blockchain? Top Developer Weighs In

While many in the crypto industry focus only on the monetary aspects of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency and its respective blockchain have a technical side too, a side that isn’t often focused on.

John Newbery, a developer at Bitcoin-centric development firm Chaincode Labs, recently broke down where he expects the network’s technical development trajectory to head next.

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What’s Next for Bitcoin Development?

First off, he remarked that in the upcoming years, he expects for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network — which is already functional in the real world — to see rapid development, citing work being done by Blockstream, Lightning Labs, and other development firms. “Taken together, those technologies will make channel and liquidity management much easier. They’ll be automated, fade into the background and user experience will improve drastically,” Newberg wrote.

The end of the decade is a good time to look back and marvel at the giant strides that Bitcoin has made since Satoshi gave us the whitepaper in 2008. It’s also a natural point to look forward to what the upcoming years might hold in store.

— John Newbery (@jfnewbery) December 22, 2019

He went on to remark that Lightning Network-enabled infrastructure — from payment providers to wallet/node software — will “improve,” remarking that with Bitfinex and other exchange adding support for the second-layer scaling solution, other service providers will have to “follow suit or become obsolete.”

The Chaincode Labs developer went on to remark that Bitcoin Schnorr Signatures/Taproot will be activated in the coming two years, which will mark a “huge improvement in fungibility, privacy, scalability and functionality.”

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Industry’s Trajectory Positive

It isn’t only Newbery who believes the best is yet to come for the Bitcoin and broader digital asset industry.

Coinlist co-founder Andy Bromberg recently argued to Bloomberg that  “we are seeing a level of building that has happened in 2019 [which makes it feel like] we’re in the moment of everyone is putting on their jumpsuits, ready to take off,” referencing the fundamental developments that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchains (and the firms backing them) have seen this year. Bromberg added that this level of building hasn’t been seen since 2017, boding well for prices in the future.

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao also recently gave a comment on his expectations for the industry in the coming year and into the next decade.

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this list of predictions from leading Asian crypto figures, would read again.

Highlighted two of my favorites.https://t.co/A0yotCYHgv pic.twitter.com/8QWYz8KxLr

— Su Zhu (@zhusu) December 21, 2019

Zhao was quoted as saying that he thinks blockchain’s impact will do more than the internet, meaning that the industry will grow, thereby meaning that the prices of the asset underlying this industry, be it Bitcoin, Binance Coin or otherwise, will also see growth. And on the matter of 2020 in specific, he said that “We are also seeing an increasing amount of interest from institutional players which also indicates a more bullish market in 2020.”

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