The Lightning Network has grown 75% in size over the past year, hitting a record high 8,900 nodes for the first time on Feb. 8, according to LN monitors at Bitcoin Visuals. A significant proportion of the increase occurred more recently, suggesting that some Bitcoiners are gravitating toward the layer-two solution, potentially as a means of escaping ever-increasing transaction fees. The total BTC locked in LN channels has remained in the 1,000 to 1,100 range since Aug. 2020 — however the total dollar value has risen 250% in the intervening months, translating to a record $42.72 million currently locked on …
Real-world use cases are one of the main adoption drivers for every crypto ecosystem, which also holds true for the Bitcoin (BTC) network. In the next seven days, the Bitcoin protocol will undergo a soft fork in the name of Taproot upgrade, which aims to improve the network’s privacy, efficiency and smart contracts capability. Taproot is Bitcoin’s first major upgrade since August 2017, which saw the introduction of Segregated Witness (SegWit) and resulted in the launch of Lightning Network. While the previous fork primarily sought to fix transaction malleability and improve Bitcoin’s network scalability, the Taproot upgrade aims to revamp …
What are the various Lightning Network problems? Routing fees, channels being fraudulently closed, the exposure of nodes to online theft and malicious attacks are a few problems with the Lightning Network. Routing fees are among the vital Lightning Network problems that are required to transfer payments between channels. However, nodes do not get any reward in return for facilitating payments. Also, fraudulent channel closure, which means one party closes the channel without notifying the other party, leading to offline transaction risk is another issue with the LN. To transmit and receive payments on Bitcoin's Lightning Network, nodes must always be …
Blockchain development company Lightning Labs announced that it released the first alpha version of its Lightning Network (LN) client for the main bitcoin (BTC) network, according to a blog post published on April 23. The announcement specifies that this is still an early version aimed at testers and developers willing to start experimenting with the software. The developers also warn that the users should not put more funds into the app than they are willing to lose. Furthermore, while the release supports macOS, Windows and Linux, the post also specifies that it is an important stepping stone in the development …
A Bitcoin Lightning Network node (BTC) has struck the earth in one of the most challenging operating environments. Lagos, the capital of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, welcomed a new Bitcoin Lightning node this week, a vital step to better connect the continent to the layer-2 payments network atop Bitcoin, the Lightning Network (LN). The node runs on an old laptop powered by a diesel generator as Lagos regularly experiences energy and electricity blackouts. In a discussion with Cointelegraph, Megasley, who is the first Nigerian Lightning node of 2023 and the first active Lightning node in the country (as other …