Have you heard about Taro? It’s an improvement proposal for the Lightning Network that Lightning Labs introduced in April. “Taro makes Bitcoin and Lightning multi-asset networks,” the company claims in the latest edition of their newsletter. They also explain in simple words what the protocol does, how it does it, and the implications of its implementation. “In a world of omnipresent communications connectivity, nobody says “cross-border messaging” anymore. Taro promises to do the same thing to “cross-border payments” by decentralizing the entire global FX market into a protocol that can run on a Raspberry Pi by anyone, anywhere.” Is the Lightning Labs exaggerating? Or is Taro the protocol that will bring the next billion people to the Lightning Network? “The opportunity provided by Taro bringing assets like stablecoins to the Lightning Network is clearly enormous,” the company claims. Can Lightning Labs back that case and argue it convincingly? Let’s find out. What Taro Does And How It Does It The first thing Lightning Labs makes clear is the psychology behind the improvement proposal. It almost seems like bitcoin’s Lightning Network will be serving Taro and not the other way around. “Instead of starting from scratch and bootstrapping a new ecosystem of nodes and liquidity, Taro will leverage the existing network effects of both the infrastructure that’s been built out over the last several years plus the 4000+ BTC allocated ...
