The Layer 2 Lightning Network has unveiled a test version of the Taproot Assets protocol update, which enables the issuance of stablecoins and other assets on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Lightning Labs, a company developing the Lightning Network infrastructure, has introduced a new version of the Taproot Assets v0.3 protocol. An alpha version of the updated protocol, which opens up the ability to issue and manage stablecoins or other assets on the Bitcoin network, is already available on GitHub.
According to Ryan Gentry, Director of Business Development at Lightning Labs, the updated version of Taproot Assets v0.3 marks the beginning of a new era for the first cryptocurrency. He believes that the new protocol functionality will enable the creation of multiple global currencies and establish a process for fiat currency exchange transactions through the Lightning Network. This will expand the possibilities of using Bitcoin as a means of payment and will finally realize the idea of “bitcoinizing the dollar” — to make the first cryptocurrency a global routing network for the payment layer of the Internet.
The issuance of financial assets will be carried out through the Layer 2 Lightning Network, which guarantees to ensure scalability of the core network. As part of the development of the updated Taproot Assets protocol, more than 2,000 different assets were created on testnets. Testing of the functionality before launching the alpha version was carried out for several months.
It’s worth noting that the launch of the protocol’s alpha version means that its development isn’t yet complete. According to Gentry, the Lightning Labs team hopes that the community will test the updated functionality for possible bugs.
In May this year, Lightning Network developers updated the Taproot Assets protocol to make transactions with BRC-20 tokens easier and cheaper, reducing the load on the Bitcoin blockchain network.
