My key AI takeaways:

-- POTENTIAL BENEFITS --

By enabling asynchronous, off-chain transfers without requiring direct interaction between parties, it addresses significant limitations in current systems while maintaining compatibility with Bitcoin's base layer.

Thunderbolt strikes a middle ground in the trust spectrum - less trustless than on-chain Bitcoin or the Lightning Network, but substantially more secure than fully custodial solutions. This positioning may attract users seeking a balance between security and convenience, particularly those uncomfortable with self-custody complexities but concerned about counterparty risk with centralized services.

The protocol could potentially complement rather than replace current scaling solutions, providing an additional option optimized for specific use cases.

-- MAJOR ISSUES --

Committee Selection and Incentives: The paper does not fully detail how committee members are selected or incentivized for honest participation. Without proper incentive alignment, committee members might not maintain availability or could be susceptible to bribery attacks

Finality Assurance Tradeoffs: While off-chain transfers are fast, they provide different finality guarantees than on-chain transactions. Users must understand these tradeoffs and the conditions under which they might need to fall back to on-chain settlement

Fee Market Impacts: By moving transactions off-chain, Thunderbolt could potentially impact Bitcoin's fee market and the long-term security budget for miners. This second-order effect requires careful consideration for sustainable deployment