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The Lightning Network is about to breach the 102 BTC capacity, and that could very well be the nicest thing to happen to Bitcoin of late. The Lightning Network brings to Bitcoin what everyone has been waiting for all along: A faster, secure payment processing system right at the top of the Bitcoin blockchain. That’s exactly what CoinGate sought to achieve when it introduced the Lightning Network.
It’s Like An Off-Shoot Of The Chain
Basically, this network acts as an off-chain layer to the Bitcoin blockchain where a batch of transactions can be processed before the underlying general chain or ledger is updated. This has the good effect of boosting the transaction processing speed since the system doesn’t have to update every transaction instance separately.
Granted, such a positive development would obviously attract players and support from various bases, especially the key stake-holders like merchants. At the moment, CoinGate has decided to add its 4,000-strong merchant base to the Lightning Network, a move that could result in an overall improvement in terms of use of the cryptocurrency. In return, this increased adoption would boost Bitcoin’s trading volumes and impact the coin’s market value positively.
Speed, Low Fees, Sharp Growth, And Zero Errors
Besides processing transactions in milliseconds, the Lightning Network also significantly reduces transaction fees. The Lightning Network facilitates instant transactions and boosts the scalability of the underlying Bitcoin blockchain network. Currently, various versions of Lightning Wallets are used by a number of transaction processing entities that act on behalf of the merchants. The merchants include Lois Chevrolet, Livejasmine, and Chronoswiss. The network was first introduced by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja back in 2015 when the Lithuanian-based company, CoinGate, entered the market.
A look at the network’s recent growth rate confirms that its impact on the Bitcoin market will be significant. Over the past month alone, the network’s capacity has shot up by 5%, node count has increased by 10%, and channel count has gone up by 6%. At the moment, the network boasts 3,369 nodes running over 12,000 channels. Within the past 6 months, the network capacity has shot up from 3 BTC to the current 102.64 BTC.
During its initial beta test, the network was involved with 100 stores selected from all across the world, and not a single error was recorded. That’s a huge plus for a payment processing system that’s handling billions of transactions per second. In terms of partnerships, CoinGate is yet to associate with any US entity, but that’s expected to happen in the coming year. All said and done, the Lightning Network seems pretty poised to take Bitcoin adoption to a whole new level.
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