According to a study by The Block Crypto, a single entity, namely LNBIG.com, currently holds approximately 61% of Bitcoin’s total Lightning Network capacity.
In fact, as can be seen on the 1ML statistics website, a good part of the nodes with the greatest capacity are held by the single entity LNBIG.com which, overall, holds 61% of the network capacity, equal to almost 515 BTC, for a current value of more than 5.3 million dollars.
Despite this, the Lightning Network as a whole has seen solid and constant growth in the last six months, considering the wider diffusion that has now reached wallets and services capable of taking advantage of the second layer bitcoin solution.
Bitcoin Lightning Network on the rise
In less than two years, Lightning Network has gone from the testnet phase to the actual mainnet, reaching the 4800 nodes permanently active on the network. In total, these nodes have created more than 32 thousand channels, for a total current capacity of more than 850 BTC, equal to 8.6 million dollars.
Although the data reported on the control by a single entity of a large part of the network is not very accurate, the study points out that the distribution of network capacity is gradually being spread among more and more nodes.
In June 2018, in fact, the first 10 nodes of the ranking held more than 53% of the total capacity of the network, while last January this value fell to 38%. Nowadays, the first 10 nodes of the network hold about 32%, with a trend that seems to be constantly improving, thus increasing the BTC distribution of the network.
Moreover, the capacity of the individual channels has also increased significantly in recent months. In fact, from May 2019 until today, on average, the channels have increased their capacity by about 20%.
So far, the average capacity of each network channel is around 2.5 million satoshis each, for an equivalent value in dollars close to 270 USD.
LNBIG.com currently has 25 Lightning Network nodes active on the mainnet, for a total capacity of 515 BTC. It is unclear who is behind this entity, although it is unlikely to be a threat to the network. After all, the operation of the LN second layer clearly prevents fraudulent attempts.
Users can open a Lightning Network channel with one of the LNBIG.com nodes by simply going to the website and choosing the preferred node from those available.
