The “MOONBEAM” solution could help Bitcoin solve its scaling problem in weeks

Golden Finance News - "Moonbeam" is an open source protocol that uses Bitcoin's payment channels to facilitate instant payments between users on multiple platforms. According to the project page on Github, Moonbeam does not require the implementation of segregated witness or larger blocks and can be deployed on the Bitcoin network.

Github shows that Moonbeam does not need to implement segregated witness or larger blocks Image source: Golden Finance

Bitcoin.com recently spoke with Timothy Stranex, lead developer of the Moonbeam project (Stranex is also the CTO of Luno exchange).

Moonbeam is a new solution to the Bitcoin expansion problem. Compared with other second-layer solutions, Moonbeam uses the payment channel conceived by Satoshi Nakamoto in a more direct and simple way. Moonbeam is like a one-way lightning network, which moves certain transactions off-chain and can achieve more functions between large-capacity platforms such as Bitcoin exchanges and wallet service providers. The new project can help solve the Bitcoin expansion problem without requiring Bitcoin developers to do anything, including increasing the block size or implementing segregated witness.

What is Moonbeam?

Bitcoin.com (BC): “Can you describe to a layman what Moonbeam will bring to Bitcoin?”

Timothy Stranex (TS): “Normally when you send a Bitcoin payment, you create a new and unique Bitcoin transaction and pay a fee to the miners to include it in a block.”

In Moonbeam, instead of sending individual Bitcoin transactions for each payment, payments are collected together and then settled as a single Bitcoin transaction, with miner fees paid only once for the settled transaction, even if the batch contains a thousand payments. Individual payments can be sent instantly, without waiting for confirmation.

Moonbeam protocol uses the concept of payment channels to form a practical system. Image source: Golden Finance

This batching method is called a “payment channel”, and the Moonbeam protocol uses the payment channel concept and other techniques to form a practical system.

BC: “Is this an official Luno project or is it something you did yourself?”

TS: “Moonbeam is an open source protocol - it’s not a Luno product, but we want to use it in our products.”

At Luno Exchange, we used to have no transaction fees, but in recent months, like many other companies, our fees have grown rapidly and we have had to start charging our customers transaction fees. Moonbeam stood out in this context. We want to provide our customers with faster Bitcoin payment services at a lower cost, and Moonbeam seems to be the most practical way to achieve this goal in the short term.

Moonbeam and the Lightning Network

BC: “What is the goal of Moonbeam? Will it replace the Lightning Network?”

TS: “Moonbeam’s goal is to provide a faster and lower-cost payment service for the Bitcoin platform. It seems that changes to Bitcoin itself have reached an impasse and it may take many months or even years to make progress on this front, so in the short term it is better to build solutions that do not require changes to Bitcoin itself.”