The next update of Bitcoin Cash will make it possible to integrate the Lightning Network into BCH.
Like in 2018, the update is scheduled for November 15th and will be implemented thanks to a fork. However, it seems that it will not result in a chain split this time since there is no indication that the old protocol will be supported by anyone.
Whereas last year’s fork caused the blockchain to split, due to the fact that two new protocols were proposed on November 15th, one of which led to the birth of the new Bitcoin SV cryptocurrency.
Essentially, on November 15th, 2019 the current BCH protocol, Bitcoin ABC, will be simply updated to version 0.20.0. This will still require a fork, which will not result in any doubling of the chain or the birth of a new cryptocurrency.
The new protocol will, among other things, enable Schnorr signatures and will also allow future implementations in Bitcoin Cash.
One of these new implementations that the fork will allow will be the possibility to implement the Lightning Network. This update of November 15th will not integrate LN on BCH but will make its development possible.
On Twitter, in fact, there are already those who wonder who will be developing Lightning Network on Bitcoin Cash and some speculate that it could take 18 months before the final launch.
So now that ⚡️ is gonna work on #BCH who is gonna be the first team that prototypes it?
— Gabriel Cardona 🧞♂️ (@cgcardona) August 28, 2019
On Bitcoin (BTC) LN has been introduced a while ago and today already has more than 36,000 channels and almost 10,000 nodes. However, even if we cannot know the number of transactions that pass through this network, Lightning Network still has a limited capacity, equal only to about 848,000 BTC (just over 8 million dollars).
In addition, this capacity has been declining recently, suggesting that its use may not be growing in recent weeks. However, it should be remembered that the month of August is often a period with a generally lower number, so this decline could just be physiological.
It remains to be understood what impact LN could have on the use of BCH, given that the number of average daily transactions is just over a tenth of those of BTC.
LN, in fact, is useful to make transactions faster and cheaper, but as for BCH, these are few and already very cheap.
