This week’s paper is Blockstream proposed solution for scaling lighthning by enabling trust-less off-blockchain channel funding.

Abstract:

The Bitcoin network has scalability problems. To increase its transaction rate and speed, micropayment channel networks have been proposed, however these require to lock funds into specific channels. Moreover, the available space in the blockchain does not allow scaling to a world wide payment system. We propose a new layer that sits in between the blockchain and the payment channels. The new layer addresses the scalability problem by enabling trust-less off-blockchain channel funding.