Ark Labs has been established to meet the demand for scalable, low-cost Bitcoin payments, continuing the vision of Ark creator Burak Keceli. Although Keceli has moved on to other ventures, the protocol he developed is the foundation upon which Ark Labs is building a faster, cheaper payment system on the world’s largest blockchain.
The newly formed company aims to address the shortcomings of the existing Lightning Network by offering an alternative that mitigates the “inbound liquidity” problem. This issue, highlighted by Keceli in a previous interview with CoinDesk, refers to the necessity of having pre-existing funds to receive payments, which he deemed illogical for a payment system.
Ark Labs has two primary objectives: to develop an open implementation of the Ark Protocol and to build user services, with the first service expected to launch later this year. The Ark Protocol is designed to facilitate off-chain payments, enabling transactions without the need for users to commit funds upfront. Instead, Ark employs service providers who offer 24-hour liquidity services for a fee.
Unlike the Lightning Network, Ark utilizes an unspent transaction output (UTXO) model, specifically using virtual unspent transaction outputs (VTXOs) to enable unidirectional, one-time-only payments. This approach aims to create a more efficient and user-friendly payment system, building on and enhancing the contributions of Lightning to Bitcoin.
In summary, Ark Labs is poised to innovate the Bitcoin payments landscape by addressing key limitations of current systems and offering a scalable, low-cost alternative that leverages the strengths of the Ark Protocol.
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