[Nursie]

It seems to work by setting up channels of funds between entities. To create a channel and fund it requires a bitcoin transaction. Payments from the fund to the recipient can then proceed off-chain to a maximum of the fund amount, then another on-chain transaction settles it.

This sounds somewhat cumbersome, but AFAICT the gains apparently come from routing between channels, so if A wants to pay B, and channels exist from A->C and C->B then payments can route that way, without the need for more on-chain transactions.

To me this sounds really quite complex, and also like it's going to involve intermediary 'hubs' which will process off-chain transactions and... well it sounds like banks and centralisation again, something the BTC crowd apparently hate.

[oelmekki]

I see, thanks for the explanation. As is, it kind of seems to defeat the idea of the blockchain, dropping it to do a meaningful amount of transactions. But it's well over my head, I'll wait and see how it plays out.