Bitcoin's blockchain can't handle micropayments, but blockchain is ideal for insurance deposits making micropayments as a separate protocol "economically" secur

Bitcoin's blockchain can't handle micropayments, but blockchain is ideal for insurance deposits making micropayments as a separate protocol "economically" secure (no one wants to lose their deposit). Two use cases: 1. Micropayment channels. When you pay to a single party in frequent small chunks, you can create a transaction that locks up certain amount upfront and than you simply re-sign that transaction moving more coins to the recipient and less back to you ("change"). Recipient does not publish transaction until the session is done. If you disconnect or they decide to stop providing you with a service, they simply release a transaction with the latest balance of payment and change. 2. Micropayment channel is not always relevant. E.g. you want to make a one-time small payment. E.g. buy a drink in a cafe for $2. We can imagine another micropayment protocol similar to Ripple where IOUs are transferred, but unlike Ripple, each IOU is ensured by at least twice the amount of real bitcoins locked up in 2-of-2 multisig transaction by each pair of nodes that exchange IOUs. In other words, it's a Visa-like clearing house, but it's decentralized (mesh-like) and every penny of debt is fully insured by real bitcoins being held hostage in "joint escrow" transaction (2-of-2 multisig).