Lightning Network, the Bitcoin protocol, has doubled its number of nodes and capacity in the first half of 2019 alone, as shown by the data available on CoinGecko.
As far as capacity alone is concerned, the percentage increase is currently 87% for the period running from January 1st to June 30th, 2019.
If instead the number of nodes available within Lightning Network in the same period is considered, then the percentage goes beyond 100% since this figure has gone from 2298 to 4576 nodes. Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC) has reached $11.776, recording more than 10% on a daily basis, although the increase in capacity is slightly less than 100%.
The Lightning Network is a payment protocol designed to facilitate transactions between users and is active on both Bitcoin and Litecoin. These transactions are recorded off-chain in order to drastically reduce the cost of fees while ensuring an almost instantaneous transfer compared to traditional on-chain transactions.
The aim is always to make the Bitcoin network more scalable, but transactions do not actually take place on the blockchain until a channel is closed.
Even in the early months of 2019, before Bitcoin’s bullish phase, Lightning Network was in the spotlight thanks to the Lightning Torch, an experiment created by Hodlonaut: via the popular social network Twitter, it was possible to pass the torch payment from one person to another, adding each time 10,000 satoshi (about $ 0.34) to the payment before sending it. This created a sort of chain effect in which people from around the world passed this torch.
The project was called LN Trust Chain because once the torch was received, it was supposed to be passed on to someone trusted who, in turn, would do the same thing
Recently, the startup Blockade Games managed to connect Ethereum and Lightning Network, generating a transaction that can activate a smart contract on Ethereum.
Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, welcomed the initiative by stating that the future of cryptocurrencies is diverse and pluralist.
https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1157284223218343936
