Despite being a forerunner in crypto, Bitcoin’s (BTC) scalability issues had always been a barrier. The Lightning Network addresses these issues, and it was initially proposed in 2015.
Bitcoin’s Lightning Network is a secondary layer on the BTC blockchain, and it facilitates off-chain transactions that do not take place on the blockchain network.
Bitcoin’s Lightning Network has seen incredible growth since its inception. The network’s adoption has been steadily rising over time, and its development was especially noticeable during the bull run of 2021. Moreover, the network hit an all-time high record of 3,900 BTC towards the end of May.
Additionally, the network has nearly 85,000 payment channels. This is quite a healthy number. The next milestone is to reach 100k payment channels. The network also has around 17,670 nodes, which is a good number. The interesting point is that the number of Lightning Network nodes is higher than that of Bitcoin nodes, which sits at around 15,800.
The lack of scalability is one of the primary barriers to Bitcoin’s adoption. But the Lightning Network might change all that. While the BTC network can handle around seven transactions per second, the Lightning Network can handle about a million per second.
Bitcoin Lightning Network to bring in mass adoption?
A report from April showed that transactions on Bitcoin Lightning Network doubled over the past year. Additionally, the value of the transactions has increased by 400%.
OpenNode, a popular Bitcoin payment platform, has partnered with Lemon Cash, a crypto wallet provider in Latin America. As per the partnership, OpenNode will integrate Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into the wallet. Nearly a million people use Lemon Cash, bringing Lightning Network’s ultra-fast BTC payment services to a new customer base.
Josh Held, head of strategy at OpenNode, stated
“This partnership is yet another example of our capability and belief in Bitcoin as the new base layer for global payments… We’re proud to support Lemon’s mission, its desire to scale and benefit its customers, and ultimately the growth of the Bitcoin economy in Latin America and beyond.”
OpenNode is one of the biggest pushers of BTC’s Lightning Network. The firm has been expanding the network’s use cases steadily since 2017.
The Lightning Network might be the feather that breaks the camel’s back and pushes BTC for worldwide adoption.
At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $20,147.38, up by 3.7% in the last 24 hours.