Why is SegWit and LN adoption still low today?

[Abiky]

It's been around 3 years since Bitcoin adopted SegWit and the Lightning Network in order to become more scalable for the mainstream world to use. Right now, people can enjoy the benefits of lower fees by interacting with native SegWit addresses. The benefits are even greater with the use of the Lightning Network which provides near-instant transaction processing times and ridiculously low fees. While most wallet providers, and exchanges have adopted SegWit, not everyone uses it on the main BTC blockchain. Even worse, LN's adoption is in the ground despite being actively promoted by its supporters.

Is there something I'm missing here? Why is adoption for SegWit and LN on Bitcoin still low today? I'm sure that if everyone started using these solutions more thoroughly, the BTC blockchain wouldn't be so bloated nowadays. Thoughts ?

[joniboini]

While I agree that LN is still not yet mainstream, I don't think segwit adoption is "low". How did you define it anyway? Where's the source? According to Blockchair SegWit usage has been around 30%+ in the last 3 months[1]. As for the reason, LN is still not yet as friendly as you think imo. You have to open a channel, find route and etc to send your payment. Not to mention major exchanges are not yet supporting it, so the average joe probably don't think they have to use it. That being said, are you one of those adopters or are you also not using them? Why?

[1] https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/

[gentlemand]

Segwit seems pretty healthy.

LNs are nowhere near smooth or developed or explained enough to tempt most existing Bitcoin users. All the talk of channels, watchtowers, routing. That's going to cause many an eye to glaze over.

I'll guess Bitcoin has three main reasons to move - to and from exchanges, buying the occasional thing, going to another wallet. Hardly any exchanges are offering it, there is a bit of LN merchant adoption but merchant adoption for Bitcoin in any form is not exactly booming, and your wallet is a final destination so lightning networking into it makes no sense as you'd still have another transaction to go.

So far I haven't seen anything that convinces me LNs will become the de facto second layer.

[Lucius]

Like others, I would not agree that the use of SegWit is low, because all research says that more than 50% of all transactions use SegWit. If we look at the following infographic, we can clearly see what it looked like at the end of 2017 when that share was at most 20%, and then in Q1 2018 it jumped to 30%, and since then it has recorded a constant increase.

Source.

Of course, it can always be better, but it's all a matter of educating users about the benefits of using SegWit. Instead, some constantly complain that the fees are too high, and at the same time out of ignorance or something else do not use the available technology to pay lower fees.

LN is something completely different, and for the average user something very complicated and still quite unknown. If it is not simplified and brought to a level where everyone can use it, it will remain something for advanced users.

[ABCbits]

SegWit adaption isn't that bad, but if you think it's still low, you should blame wallet which didn't create SegWit address by default or services which haven't support SegWit yet.

So far I haven't seen anything that convinces me LNs will become the de facto second layer.

Requirement to make 2 on-chain transaction to open and close LN channel is also turn-off for many people who rarely make transaction.

[crwth]

I know some people have their systems still with the legacy systems and doesn't support pure Segwit yet. And I think they are nowhere near changing their systems anytime soon, and that's just the reality. They need the effort to improve systems, and I think it's not their priority right now.

Anyways, personally I use SegWit but not LN yet. I read a topic here that someone lost 4 BTC just because of LN, and that's only one of the reasons why it's not however applied everywhere. There are still factors to consider like it's the bugs, etc. I haven't dabbled deep into it, maybe in the future when it's more stable.

[davis196]

3 years ago,when the Bitcoin Core blockchain was stuck with multiple small transactions,the fees were high and the confirmation time was low,SegWit and the Lightning Network were promoted as the solutions of those problems.3 years later,the Bitcoin Core blockchain is going just fine,the fees are OK,the confirmation time is decent.I think that Segwit helped the blockchain to get rid of high fees/slow confirmation problem.
The LN is a completely different case.LN is a not-so-user-friendly,centralized off-chain solution.That's why many bitconers won't trust the Lightning Network and might never adopt it in their business or daily life.

[Tipstar]

While I agree that LN is still not yet mainstream, I don't think segwit adoption is "low". How did you define it anyway? Where's the source? According to Blockchair SegWit usage has been around 30%+ in the last 3 months[1]. As for the reason, LN is still not yet as friendly as you think imo. You have to open a channel, find route and etc to send your payment. Not to mention major exchanges are not yet supporting it, so the average joe probably don't think they have to use it. That being said, are you one of those adopters or are you also not using them? Why?

[1] https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/

As stated, only the people that are living in stone age won't be using segwit. I moved to Bech32 native segwit and never felt happier.
As of LN, it's a much complex topic and maybe will never be considered a solution at current form. It has pros and cons and we can't force the community in something that is not well received by a significant group of members.  LN is an experiment one step further, it would certainly be an idea for further improvements.

[buwaytress]

Bitcoin itself took such a long time to adopt, so I'd say the rate of Segwit adoption, as demonstrated by many others here, given that is has only been THREE years, is pretty huge. Lightning apps? Google search even turns up a list of top 10 Lightning apps.

We're talking about an upgrade and a second layer tech that has had their fair share of misdirected propaganda and active resistance from service providers. I'd say we're already at a positive rate of adoption given all the hurdles.

Besides, what's the fun of a Bitcoin network without the bloat?=p

[Twinkledoe]

Bitcoin itself took such a long time to adopt, so I'd say the rate of Segwit adoption, as demonstrated by many others here, given that is has only been THREE years, is pretty huge. Lightning apps? Google search even turns up a list of top 10 Lightning apps.

We're talking about an upgrade and a second layer tech that has had their fair share of misdirected propaganda and active resistance from service providers. I'd say we're already at a positive rate of adoption given all the hurdles.

Besides, what's the fun of a Bitcoin network without the bloat?=p

And the reason why some are still stuck with the original btc because of the convenience. But SegWit is actually getting popular here in the forum. If you will see in most sig campaigns, a lot are already using SegWit addresses. So I'd say adoption is going on. Maybe we are not seeing the impact yet but maybe couple of years and we will see the effect of it among crypto users.

[Pffrt]

1st reason- Most of the people still use centralized custodial wallet service and they don't know what segwit is and what's the benefit of using segwit.
2nd- There is no promotion for segwit which doesn't make sense too as bitcoin had never any promotion. So a lot of people haven't heard about it yet.
3rd- Some services don't accept native segwit addresses for withdraw, as a result people using such service have to use Legacy or nested segwit which wasn't that easy to create some days ago.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

I know two sources from Bitmex (1 month). Who knows how to expand the chart to months or years, please help.
Lightning Network
Segwit usage

[kryptqnick]

I'd like to comment about the Lightning Network. Similar things were already pointed out, but I want to join these posts and summarize the way I see the problem.
I believe the adoption of the LN is low because there are at least two social groups that don't use it. The first one is people for whom it's too techy to use. The LN is not as user-friendly as Bitcoin wallets, and to reach broader audience there should be a way of using it without much effort. This problem could be solved by working on an app that would simplify things or something like that, but it's been years with little progress in that direction. The second group is more troublesome. It's usually people for whom using the LN is not difficult, but they just don't want to use it for various reasons (it's off-chain, so not really Bitcoin; there are centralization issues).

[BrewMaster]

i believe LN is not yet that popular because of 2 things, first it doesn't seem to be fully complete and there aren't any major businesses such as exchanges that use it so there isn't that much use case for it.
but with all that, LN is still used quite a lot. the network of LN nodes and the amount that has been trasferred in and out of the channels has been high.

as for SegWit the adoption seems to have capped for some time again because some big businesses are still resisting implementation of SegWit in their wallets. like some exchanges that are still creating legacy addresses, gambling sites that do the same, etc.

although i call LN adoption low but SegWit adoption is nowhere near low.

[gentlemand]

3 years ago,when the Bitcoin Core blockchain was stuck with multiple small transactions,the fees were high and the confirmation time was low,SegWit and the Lightning Network were promoted as the solutions of those problems.3 years later,the Bitcoin Core blockchain is going just fine,the fees are OK,the confirmation time is decent.I think that Segwit helped the blockchain to get rid of high fees/slow confirmation problem.

The sole reason there hasn't been sustained high fees is because there hasn't been sustained high demand. We're getting spikes now and some day soon they may be there for weeks or months on end.

Segwit and batching certainly helps. It also certainly hasn't solved it. We may see fees even higher than last time.

There's still a hard upper limit of daily transactions and it's not all that many. The only way around it is to cough up more.

[mk4]

i believe LN is not yet that popular because of 2 things, first it doesn't seem to be fully complete and there aren't any major businesses such as exchanges that use it so there isn't that much use case for it.

It's the really really unfortunate chicken and egg problem all over again. Not much people are using LN because not much services accepts LN, and not much services implemented LN because not much people use LN. 😵😵

If we wanted a huge LN adoption spike overnight, make Binance implement LN. I have no doubt there will be a significant rise in usage. But then again, Binance doesn't even have SegWit. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[BrewMaster]

i believe LN is not yet that popular because of 2 things, first it doesn't seem to be fully complete and there aren't any major businesses such as exchanges that use it so there isn't that much use case for it.

It's the really really unfortunate chicken and egg problem all over again. Not much people are using LN because not much services accepts LN, and not much services implemented LN because not much people use LN. 😵😵

If we wanted a huge LN adoption spike overnight, make Binance implement LN. I have no doubt there will be a significant rise in usage. But then again, Binance doesn't even have SegWit. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

yeah, i have the same conclusion specially since these days i have been searching for a decentralized exchange and i feel like they too suffer from the same chicken and egg problem. people want higher liquidity and better features in DEX so they don't use them but they can only improve if people use these DEXes!

[Upgrade00]

yeah, i have the same conclusion specially since these days i have been searching for a decentralized exchange and i feel like they too suffer from the same chicken and egg problem. people want higher liquidity and better features in DEX so they don't use them but they can only improve if people use these DEXes!

DEXes has seen a surge in adoption over the past few months, although this may be partially due to the hype around the DeFi system. Adoption however needs a spark and this might be the one to increase usage in decentralized exchanges.
In the case of LN, it would definitely be a gradual process, making payments is meant to be basic and easy, on both the part of the buyer and seller, the intricacies of LN may be confusing to most people now, but with time and a more streamlined access, it would surely get more adoption.

[The Cryptovator]

As we know revolution doesn't happen in one day. Still, lots of peoples don't know bitcoin technology properly even they are using bitcoin. We can see bitcoin hadn't become popular just within a day or year. Its taking time and I believe SegWit and Lighting network will be popular once a time, so it's just a matter of time.

Everyone knows the main reason is the prevention of SegWit and Lighting, 'lack of uses'. Most of the exchanges/merchants still do not support SegWit and Lightning. So even we want to use it due to the nature of exchanges/merchants we are forced to use Legacy or nested SegWit. I think that's the main problem why both of them didn't become popular. We have to wait for more to see its adoption.

[fiulpro]

It's been around 3 years since Bitcoin adopted SegWit and the Lightning Network in order to become more scalable for the mainstream world to use. Right now, people can enjoy the benefits of lower fees by interacting with native SegWit addresses. The benefits are even greater with the use of the Lightning Network which provides near-instant transaction processing times and ridiculously low fees. While most wallet providers, and exchanges have adopted SegWit, not everyone uses it on the main BTC blockchain. Even worse, LN's adoption is in the ground despite being actively promoted by its supporters.

Is there something I'm missing here? Why is adoption for SegWit and LN on Bitcoin still low today? I'm sure that if everyone started using these solutions more thoroughly, the BTC blockchain wouldn't be so bloated nowadays. Thoughts ?

See the thing is SegWit and Lightning ⚡ network both being better options when it comes to fee are not actually well suited for keeping the Bitcoins there for longer period of time since it's not entirely safe , therefore it's good when it used with small transactions and such but it cannot be used without making proper adjustments regarding the security.

There is a reason why it takes time for the transactions to be confirmed.

Plus I do use LN and SegWit very frequently because am not dealing with a huge amount of Bitcoin , therefore for me it's good but for long term holders it might not be safe at all . It all depends on how and for what reason you are using them. I do believe in the future we will see good updates in the network and then more people will start using them.