It's also worth mentioning that LN enables sharding of the blockchain itself, since it enables atomic swapping of currencies.
Let's say in the near future 1 million computers are willing to be a node (blockchain node, not LN node) for a cryptocurrency. If they all stored the same blockchain, that may be more redundancy and security than is necessary. So Bitcoin could fork into say 1000 separate blockchains (similar to Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Cash but on a much greater scale). Then 1000 blockchains each get replicated 1000 times. The LN can run on top of those blockchains to smooth out exchanges between the different currencies. Each individual user may only need to hold coins on a half-dozen currencies, the exchange and balancing of which are done automagically. This effectively means the settlement layer has greater capacity and can be used for smaller sums of money. Whereas with only one blockchain (Bitcoin) you may only close out a channel every year (or whatever frequency LN detractors have calculated), with 1000 currencies you could close out multiple times a day.
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It's also worth mentioning that LN enables sharding of the blockchain itself, since it enables atomic swapping of currencies. Let's say in the near future 1 million computers are willing to be a node (blockchain node, not LN node) for a cryptocurrency. If they all stored the same blockchain, that may be more redundancy and security than is necessary. So Bitcoin could fork into say 1000 separate blockchains (similar to Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Cash but on a much greater scale). Then 1000 blockchains each get replicated 1000 times. The LN can run on top of those blockchains to smooth out exchanges between the different currencies. Each individual user may only need to hold coins on a half-dozen currencies, the exchange and balancing of which are done automagically. This effectively means the settlement layer has greater capacity and can be used for smaller sums of money. Whereas with only one blockchain (Bitcoin) you may only close out a channel every year (or whatever frequency LN detractors have calculated), with 1000 currencies you could close out multiple times a day.