Authors: Martin Betz, Dr. Jonas Gross, Jonathan Knoll, Yannic Fraebel, Denis Scheller, Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner, Daniel Wingen Executive Summary The Lightning Network is the next evolutionary step of Bitcoin. With the Lightning Network as the rails and Bitcoin as the vehicle, there is tremendous disruptive potential in how payments are conducted…

Authors: Jonas Gross, Johannes Sedlmeir, Simon Seiter Executive Summary This proposal applies previous work by Gross, Sedlmeir, Babel, Bechtel, and Schellinger, who designed a central bank digital currency (CBDC) system that supports cash-like private, compliant payments using zero-knowledge proofs and digital identities (Gross et al., 2021). We explore the feasibility of a…

Authors: Yannic Fraebel, Jonas Gross, Denis Scheller, Philipp Sandner Bitcoin will not become a common means of payment overnight, especially since there are still few places where it is accepted. The proper infrastructure is needed, which is currently being developed based on the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Lightning makes Bitcoin suitable…

Authors: Denis Scheller, Dr. Jonas Gross, Jonathan Knoll, Yannic Fraebel The preceding articles in this series cover the basics of the Lightning Network and industrial use cases of Bitcoin Lightning. In this article, we focus on retail use cases for the end user. …

Authors: Martin Betz, Daniel Wingen, Jonas Gross The Bitcoin Lightning Network has been designed as a global payment network. However, unlike traditional payment networks, Lightning not only involves messaging, i.e., the exchange of payment instructions but also immediately involves a final bilateral settlement. Thus, each successful payment over the Lightning…

Authors: Dr. Jonas Gross, Jonathan Knoll, Denis Scheller In the first two parts of our article series, we showed what the Bitcoin Lightning Network is, what it can be used for, and how to set up a wallet and perform transactions. In the third article of the series, we focus…

by the Digital Euro Association, CBDC Think Tank and worldwide CBDC experts How should a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) be designed to provide value for society? We are thrilled to announce the release of our CBDC Manifesto at the CBDC Summit in Washington D.C., a collection of five…

Authors: Dr. Jonas Gross, Jonathan Knoll, Denis Scheller As explained in the first part of our article series, the Bitcoin Lightning Network enables low-cost, real-time payments. To conduct a payment it typically only requires the user to scan a QR code with a Lightning-supporting application. The payment is then executed…

Insights from the crypto roundtable at the German Bundestag Author: Jonas Gross On September 30, I was invited to participate in the second crypto roundtable initiated by the German Free Democratic Party (FDP), in particular by Frank Schäffler. Topic of the discussions was the upcoming crypto regulation in Europe, namely…