Lightning Network Observer

[fillippone]

Let me introduce you to a very basic article by Coinshare Research.

A good, basic primer on Lightning network:

Lightning: Bitcoin’s High Speed Transmission Protocol

Intro

Bitcoin’s usage growth over the past decade has been strong and steady. On this journey, from its humble beginnings, Bitcoin has progressed through several phases of differing usage. Starting as a worthless geeky collectible, it soon moved to a niche instrument of speculation, before graduating to its more recent and increasing use as a store of value, or digital gold. Such progressions inches Bitcoin ever closer to the final and most valuable use case: A global and widely used new form of money.

However, widespread usage of bitcoin as money requires it to be useful as such. For bitcoin to reach its final monetary form, it is not sufficient to be a store of value alone (as is currently the case with gold), it also needs to be a viable medium of exchange. As we will see, this is a peculiar challenge for a decentralised payment system.

Bitcoin was designed to reliably settle peer-to-peer transactions without reliance on any third party. To achieve this, it purposefully prioritises security and settlement finality at the expense of transaction scalability. All decentralised systems face this dilemma as there exists an inescapable tradeoff between decentralisation and scalability at the blockchain level. Take note of that last distinction as it is an important concept to grasp when investigating how scalability can still be achieved in decentralised systems using layering. We’ll return to that in a bit.

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[fillippone]

I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:


https://twitter.com/kerooke/status/1424013635559608330?s=20


Also the same author published a interesting article on LN:
The Lightning Network Is Bigger Than You Think

To a casual observer, the Lightning Network looks like a protocol with roughly 2,100 BTC ($86 million) of value "locked" into its network. That's not much in comparison to popular DeFi protocols, and it's even less in comparison to the market cap of Bitcoin.

However, the analysis above is flawed on many levels.

The Lightning Network is not a borrowing protocol, an AMM, or a store of value. Furthermore, the idea that Bitcoin is "locked" on the Lightning Network is misleading at best.
The Lightning Network is a protocol for making instant, nearly-free payments to anyone in the world denominated in Bitcoin, and much of the payment activity on the network happens in private.
Only when we examine the Lightning Network through the lens of a payment network, can we begin to estimate how big it is today, and how much bigger it could be tomorrow.

[(o)(o)ilikeboobs(o)(o)]

It seems that the Lightning network is no longer a theory, many people are using the lightning network. Can we know which countries are using the lightning network the most? I noticed that El Salvador is a popular Bitcoin Lightning user country and some other countries like the US, Japan.

[franky1]

I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:

a little under 400btc.. but who's counting..
seems LN fangirls are always exaggerating to the point of appearing as 125%+ of actual truth in regards to LN

the surprising thing is . if fangirls stop their over exaggerations and over hype. they could actually win more favour by mentioning the hard truths and risks. so that people can be ACTUALLY INFORMED

i guarantee you.
if you actually factually tell people honourably that the tradeoffs of security/value risk of unconfirmed transactions exists to allow 'faster payments' on another network.. instead of pretending LN is as secure and better than bitcoin..
that kind of harse but honest information can actually win more favour

[ndalliard]

I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:

a little under 400btc.. but who's counting..
seems LN fangirls are always exaggerating to the point of appearing as 125%+ of actual truth in regards to LN

2272.51 - 1730.94 = 541.57

it is more than 500btc - but who is checking the actual numbers right? 

[DooMAD]

I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:

a little under 400btc.. but who's counting..
seems LN fangirls are always exaggerating to the point of appearing as 125%+ of actual truth in regards to LN

2272.51 - 1730.94 = 541.57

it is more than 500btc - but who is checking the actual numbers right? 

Careful, he'll accuse you of poking bears and orchestrating social dramas if you dare to imply he might be wrong.   

The only reality is his reality.  Where LN is an evil plot to weaken and eventually destroy Bitcoin.  Only franky1 can save us all from the horror.   

[dragonvslinux]

I know capacity isn't usually calculated in $ terms, but with 2,283 Bitcoins, Lightning now has over $100 million locked up the first time in BTC history

I think it's time this network get's back into the Top 10 for DeFi protocols with locked up value, rather than having 0.0001% of the lockup share.

Can definitely become the most popular for payments, I'm not convinced there's any real competition 

[franky1]

usually. average users would want to lock up just $100 and have a couple channels

hubs would lock up over $1k per channel and have a dozen+ channels

with the stats showing that 90% of nodes are having 14 channels and each channel being 90% 0.1btc($4k+)
means that the majority(90%) of the network is hubs/elitests) and only 10% are normal average people

normal average users are not playing with atleast $14k spread over channels.. so 90% of the network is not normal average people

so dont get excited with fluffy myth of user adoption. instead just see the services offering free/discounted 'inbounds' is pumping the volume even if there are not many users actually using it

[Timelord2067]

I just wanted to say thank-you for providing this information and to let you know I'm following the discussion.  I have Eclair, Blue, Zap and Phoenix wallets on various tablets and mobile phones to test the applications out and get a feel for the Network's capabilities.

Others, myself included have noticed there are data bottle necks in various parts of the network.  I was wondering if you have any information on this phenomenon?

[ndalliard]

The growth could have been triggered by the recent announcement of the development of a future version of Twitter called Bluesky, where all accounts are going to be connected to a Lightning wallet:

source for the by me bolded statement?

[dansus021]

i dont much know about litghtning network, how much transcation per second can lightning do?

this would be great if big centralized exchange join this, i mean as you can see when we transfering bitcoin to exchange wallet the exchanger still need to transfer to their hot wallet vice versa when withdrawing, they can cut cost if implementing this right

[ndalliard]

i dont much know about litghtning network, how much transcation per second can lightning do?

this is hard to measure - a similar question is: how many transactions per second can the internet do?
(of course both networks are not at the same scale at the moment, but the internet started somewhere too)

this would be great if big centralized exchange join this, i mean as you can see when we transfering bitcoin to exchange wallet the exchanger still need to transfer to their hot wallet vice versa when withdrawing, they can cut cost if implementing this right

according to marty bent an exchange in nigeria and one in guatemala just added lightning to their exchanges

[Rath_]

i dont much know about litghtning network

Take a look at The Lightning Network FAQ and Basics of the Lightning Network.

his would be great if big centralized exchange join this, i mean as you can see when we transfering bitcoin to exchange wallet the exchanger still need to transfer to their hot wallet vice versa when withdrawing, they can cut cost if implementing this right

Bitfinex already supports Lightning deposits and withdrawals. They have two really large nodes (bfx-lnd0, bfx-lnd1) which are well-connected. They charge only 0.000001 BTC (~$0.05) for Lightning withdrawals.

[fillippone]

Take a look at The Lightning Network FAQ and Basics of the Lightning Network.
 

Oh, great suggestion.
Somehow I forgot to mention those threads before.
Added to OP together with some other useful resource.

[Rath_]

Somehow I forgot to mention those threads before.
Added to OP together with some other useful resource.

You might also consider adding Electrum Lightning Network walkthough to your list. If someone is using Electrum as their main wallet then they might give Lightning Network a try if they see that thread. Some people might find All Lightning Network Threads In One Place useful as well.

[icopress]

Firstly, I am full of enthusiasm to receive notifications from this thread, that's why I'm here ... secondly, having superficially looked at Jack's / Jay Graber new brainchild ^{[blueskyweb.org]}, I immediately think of the unsuccessful brainchild of Durov (TON). So I would be grateful if someone has a couple of minutes to enlighten me a little. Maybe I'm wrong but the other day I saw a mention in the spirit of "bluesky & light network" so I ask. ^{[besides the publications above]}

[fillippone]

When I started Lightning Network Observer I thought a thread to post not too technical content about LN, there are already superb threads dealing with those matters, inspiring people to join this solution showing how can effectively make the bitcoin user experience better and then making our beloved orange coin more suitable to help people solve problems.

Content like this:


https://twitter.com/jackmallers/status/1428429890957848591?s=20

Wow, so what? Jack sent 10 USD to a bloke using a couple of apps. WOW!

Obviously this is a very superficial way of looking at this.
It could be true for someone living in a fully banked world, having access to the banking system, visa and Paypal networks etc.

This reality is not so common in the world, as you might not imagine.

On the other end of the trade, there is a guy in Nigeria.

How does he see this?



https://twitter.com/Afo_Ogunnaike/status/1428447467771662343?s=20



Everything happened without authorisations, commercial relationships, license agreements, stamps, lawyers or other frictions.
Everything happened in a trustless, uncensorable, irreversible way.
Everything with instant settlement and no fees.

[Karartma1]

Everything's the important word here!
This is changing literally everything and anything. I'm not an expert on LN myself, I know I should be, but for the sake of what I need I prefer a custodial approach to LN.
Like those examples you mentioned that's what we need.
We only need more and more people to rely on it to see this revolution unfolding right before our eyes.
It's about time for the many, but for a few visionaries, this is changing everything.

[fillippone]

Nice, emotional, two part video on Lightning network.


https://twitter.com/BitcoinIsaiah/status/1429983900043038721?s=20

Sorry for the initial caption... the video is better than that!

[tranthidung]

Let's make this topic great with another informative article

• The Lightning Network Is Bigger Than You Think

This table is interesting, and I already downloaded data from BitcoinVisuals but for now I don't have time to play with it. Such table is great because it quantifies the growth of Lightning network.