It's done off-chain because on-chain would be expensive and slow. On-chain takes 10 min and $1.50-$15 in fees depending on the day. Lightning takes < 1 second for < 1 penny in fees.
Lightning transactions are secured by the base chain, so you're not at risk of losing any funds. The transaction data is "off-chain" because there's no reason for it to be "on-chain".
Yes and all that technical debt, complexity and loss in decentralization could be avoided by simply increasing the block size. BCH for example has zero-conf transactions and the average fee is also <$0.01.
But that would mean that you'd be able to use it as an actual means of exchange instead of this crippled "Internet gold" bastardization that BTC has become.
It's done off-chain because on-chain would be expensive and slow. On-chain takes 10 min and $1.50-$15 in fees depending on the day. Lightning takes < 1 second for < 1 penny in fees.
Lightning transactions are secured by the base chain, so you're not at risk of losing any funds. The transaction data is "off-chain" because there's no reason for it to be "on-chain".
Yes and all that technical debt, complexity and loss in decentralization could be avoided by simply increasing the block size. BCH for example has zero-conf transactions and the average fee is also <$0.01.
But that would mean that you'd be able to use it as an actual means of exchange instead of this crippled "Internet gold" bastardization that BTC has become.