5.
It's like a safe where two people deposit equal amounts of money and put a lock on it.
This action to deposit equal amounts of money into a common box is registered on the Blockchain in the form of an "opening transaction" and then a payment channel is opened between these two people.
The idea behind locking the money in such a box is that no one can spend money in the box without the other L & # 39; 39, silver in this box is then used to treat each other.
Imagine, Xan and Yelena pool in 10 BTC each in the common And now, if Xan wants to send 2 BTC to Yelena, how would he do that ?
To do this, he transfers a promise of ownership for two of his Bitcoins into the common box in Yelena. After this transfer of promise, if the box is unlocked, Xan will take 8 BTC and Yelena will be able to claim 12 BTC
But they are not going to open the box because they want to continue trading between them.
Now, if the next day, Yelena has to send 1 BTC to Xan, she would do the same thing – transfer a promise of ownership for one of her Bitcoins to Xan. If the box is open, Xan can claim 9 BTC and Yelena can get 11 BTC
To imagine what chain transactions look like, consider this:
In summary Indeed, the payment channel is nothing any other than a combination of pooling money and transferring the property promise of the pooled money in the agreed manner. If ever Xan or Yelena wants to close the channel, they can do it.
Closing a chain would simply mean opening the box and taking money in. This opening of the box happens on the Blockchain and the person who owns how much of the box is saved forever
This is how the payment channels work, but it does not even come close to defining their true potential. Payment channels work together to form a network – The Lightning Network.