[2018-11-22] Bitcoin Lightning Network Explodes To New Heights With $2M Capacity

[tyz]

Data from monitoring resource 1ML.com reveals the past week have seen overall capacity shoot up almost 300 percent to 438 BTC. An analysis of top capacity nodes on the Bitcoin mainnet LN implementation shows multiple new entries from the same provider, most of which dwarf the capacity of the network’s previous largest node, ‘fairly cheap,’ which provided around 15 BTC.
https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-lightning-network-2m-capacity/

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[BitHodler]

I'm not keen on anything related to the current on-chain scaling solutions, but this is pretty huge news. The increase in channel funding signals more progress, and thus a higher level of trust in the technology.

+4000 nodes is quite an achievement in itself as well, especially when you take into consideration that Bcash has around 2000 nodes deployed. Imagine where LN stands when we're 12 months further in time.

With more commonly used platforms hopping on board people will have more incentive to actually start using LN, because the selection of accepted stores or platforms is still very low right now. Everything takes time to develop.

[buwaytress]

+4000 nodes is quite an achievement in itself as well, especially when you take into consideration that Bcash has around 2000 nodes deployed. Imagine where LN stands when we're 12 months further in time.

This was exactly what someone brought up in another group I had going: yes, the 2k nodes for a coin only just over a year old is a significant sign. But pointed out that these were almost all originally Bitcoin nodes anyway. Ignoring that, the adoption for LN is what's the big surprise of the year (and I know you don't like on chain but hey, even Segwit is faring better than expected, no?). Some redditor was posting about a shop in Australia accepting LN so we know it's not just a big deal either. BCH's got to push and market for that kind of adoption but Bitcoin continues to rely successfully on voluntary eagerness.

[hatshepsut93]

I can't wait to see brand new types of services powered by Lightning Network. I've already seen blog posts and image sharing with LN paywall, I guess in the future we'll see games, filesharing, content delivery as well as more traditional things like markets, all powered by Lightning Network.

[Carlton Banks]

438 BTC isn't much.

But it's 438 BTC that literally cannot be sold on exchanges while the channels holding it are open, and closing channels takes time (the worst case scenario is on the level of several weeks, the markets move too quickly for that kind of timescale to be useful).

And the higher that figure for total public BTC in channels grows, the more likely that exchanges are going to want to tap the stored up liquidity, forcing them to accept lightning deposits. Which makes chain analysis so much more difficult. And decentralised exchange becomes easier. All that's needed is a stable coin that can be exchanged in atomic swaps for BTC, and then a whole new paradigm for crypto trading could be viable; 3rd party risk when depositing to fiat exchanges is the real issue with cryptocurrency trading, that could be gone altogether, with exchanges only providing fiat liquidity. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but the tech and the incentive is there to do it.

[1Referee]

The contrast between the market and the protocol is huge. The market which is where the speculative tourists hang out, makes it seem like Bitcoin's end is near, where speculative tourists sell in the process, while the true believers of the protocol see fundamental growth, which stimulates them to buy up even more coins while the price is screaming BUY NOW!

Money is the most powerful utility there is, because it enjoys an infinite amount of potential demand with the world population growing continuously.

I'm in for a daring prediction; before the end of 2019 at least 10,000BTC has been locked in LN channels.

[BitHodler]

(and I know you don't like on chain but hey, even Segwit is faring better than expected, no?)

SegWit is performing poorly with below 40% support. The main reasons transaction fees have gone down is transaction batching and more accurate fee calculation on the client side, and way less transaction activity.

It wouldn't even surprise me if next year SegWit support is still below 50% because the big block camp will continue to not have any of their sites and services upgrade due to Bcash losing its main 'selling feature' being low fees.

That's exactly why I am looking forward to more LN development. Once your funded channels are active, you no longer have to care about what happens with the main chain, or how toxic miners are. This is it.

[Carlton Banks]

(and I know you don't like on chain but hey, even Segwit is faring better than expected, no?)

SegWit is performing poorly with below 40% support. The main reasons transaction fees have gone down is transaction batching and more accurate fee calculation on the client side, and way less transaction activity.

It wouldn't even surprise me if next year SegWit support is still below 50% because the big block camp will continue to not have any of their sites and services upgrade due to Bcash losing its main 'selling feature' being low fees.

Doesn't matter much. If people continue to use services/merchants without segwit, blocks will be smaller, that will drive lightning use. If people switch from services/merchants who don't use segwit, then we have some onchain capacity too. I expect the latter, as people will more likely act to do what's good for them.

And remember that everyone can just use backwards compatible segwit addresses whether other people use segwit or not. This costs the business extra transaction fees, not the customer. In Bitcoin, the sender pay the transaction fees, so the receiving address makes no difference.