Praveen Baratam questioned the importance of SegWit in enabling the Lightning Network. He suggested that by waiting for the funding transaction to be confirmed, it would be possible to safely create and update unconfirmed commitment transactions without requiring SegWit. The purpose of SegWit is to fix transaction malleability, which can cause issues with the Lightning Network's ability to function effectively. However, some members of the community have raised concerns about the impact of SegWit on the overall scalability of the Bitcoin network.