Notwithstanding the year-long bear market, paired with the recent “crypto winter” market crash, the Bitcoin Lightning network experienced robust growth throughout the whole of 2018.
As of 23 December, node channels supporting the Lightning scaling protocol were able to facilitate 496.8 BTC, reaching a milestone of almost 500 BTC.
The amount was roughly $2 million at that time. In the last two months, the number of channels linking nodes for the first time also increased visibly, totalling up to 14,352 unique channels by the end of December. Scalability is one of Bitcoin’s main problems.
Despite several advancements over the last ten years, the ecosystem can sometimes not manage to deal with the increasing number of customers and transactions, which can dramatically increase the waiting time for trades from minutes to days.
The BTC Lightning Network, a second layer payment protocol operating on top of the BTC blockchain, intends to solve scalability problems using payment channels—a safe and quick way to transact between a multiple users without creating a record on the blockchain until the channel is closed.
Monitoring statistics 1ML.com affirmed the record payment capacity, with accessible nodes and channels rising 13.7% and 25%, respectively.
The figures represent a period of relentless advancements for Lightning, which in recent months has only added to its increase in engineering prowess and commercial success.
Last week, the auction of what has become regarded as the the “cheapest work of art in history” with a payment from the LN triggered fresh ovation for technology.
Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, whose innovation engineered the sale, later claimed that the cost of microscopic artwork at 1 millisatoshi ($0.00000004143) was substantially cheaper than a single speck of dust.
Crypto-centric venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital Partners managing partner Alex Pack “Bitcoin could maybe fall as low as $2,000, or even $1,000, but not $0. And that’s a milestone for an asset. For something like bitcoin, which is a landmark in the history of money, it has become a more dependable store of value. People buying and using it have got to be confident it’s not going to zero.”