The Lightning Network (LN) has reached a new goal with its number of nodes surpassing 10,000 for the first time.
This is according to data provided by the LN-based data website 1ml. Despite that, the network capacity fell by 2.43% in the last 30 days.
Lightning Network Continues Expanding
1ml reports that there are 10,003 nodes operating in the LN. At the same time, the number of channels is 36,241 and the nodes with active channels are 5,976.
The Lightning Network is the ultimate solution for Bitcoin’s scalability problems. In the future, once it is ready to be deployed, it would be possible for users to send and receive BTC payments in a fast and inexpensive way.
This second-layer scaling solution was created to avoid using the main blockchain network for day-to-day transactions. One of the main benefits of the LN is the possibility to send micropayments.
Bitcoin experienced scaling issues back in 2017 when sending a payment could be much more expensive than the funds transferred. This happened because Bitcoin’s blocks were full and this affected the whole performance of the network. Miners were processing the transactions with the highest fees rather than those with smaller fees.
The LN capacity has also reached its highest value in March this year surpassing 1,000 BTC. Nowadays, the network capacity is 828 BTC or $6.54 million. However, each LN transaction generally involves small amounts of money, while the main Bitcoin network is used for larger transactions.
Improving Scalability
It is worth mentioning that the Lightning Network is not the only project that is currently being developed in order to improve Bitcoin’s scalability.
In order to help Bitcoin mitigate its scalability problems, the community decided to implement Segregated Witness (SegWit), a scaling solution that helps reduce the size of each transaction. In this way, the whole network is able to process a larger number of transactions before the network is congested.
The number of Bitcoin transactions with SegWit implementation has also reached new highs in the last few days. Nowadays, over 50% of the payment sent in Bitcoin involve SegWit addresses.
Many individuals and enthusiasts complain the LN is not currently being developed at a fast pace. This scaling solution has been discussed and debated many times in the past. Bitcoin supporters that didn’t approve this scaling solution forked the most popular digital asset and created Bitcoin Cash (BCH) that aims at scaling the Bitcoin network through on-chain solutions.
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