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Lightning Network

Bitcoin’s Lightning-focused app Strike hits Argentinian shores

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Bitcoin’s Lightning-powered payment app, Strike, announced its launch in Argentina to offer what it claims to be a superior financial experience in a country that has one of the world’s highest adoption rates for cryptocurrencies. The recent development further advances Strike’s mission of building a ‘more connected financial world.’

According to the press release, Strike would facilitate day-one access to a wide range of use cases such as instant and near-free remittance payments, accepting and sending bitcoin Tips on Twitter, and peer-to-peer transactions. On Strike’s future expansion plans the P.A read,

Strike has begun working with merchants, consumers, and individuals in Argentina, launching initial integrations and activations in San Martin de Los Andes. Since the launch in El Salvador less than one year ago, Strike has quadrupled its Latin American team to expand in Argentina, and it is targeting a continent-wide expansion of its team and of the app. Strike will continue to launch in more countries throughout the year, with a focus on Brazil, Colombia, and other Latin American markets and plans for other regions throughout the world.

Strike would be available on the App Store and Google Play Store in Argentina. Besides that, it also enables anyone with a Twitter account within the accepted countries to receive and to send Tips to anyone. According to the payment firm, this is a cheaper and faster global alternative to traditional bank or card networks. In addition to Argentina, Strike is available in most U.S. states and El Salvador.

El Salvador’s adoption -the first Bitcoin national project

Having said that, the world’s first national Bitcoin project has been El Salvador’s adopting BTC as legal tender back in September 2021. Previously, El Salvador‘s Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya said that the government is planning to send around 20 bills related to the Bitcoin bonds to Congress for its approval. The bills aim to cover financial markets and investment in securities to provide a legal foundation for issuing the bonds, he told a local TV. “This is to provide a legal structure and legal certainty to everyone who buys the Bitcoin bond,” Zelaya added.

Spencer Schiff finds Musk’s obsession with Dogecoin bizarre

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Spencer Schiff, a former goldbug and now an advocate for Bitcoin [BTC] finds it bizarre that Elon Musk is still so enthusiastically consumed by Dogecoin [DOGE].

Spencer Schiff, the son of an American stockbroker, financial commentator, and radio personality, Peter David Schiff, wonders why the Tesla CEO, Musk, cherishes the meme coin.

Elon Musk has been an evident supporter of the DOGE asset ever since 2019. He took to Twitter, not very long ago, to announce that his company, Tesla, will be accepting DOGE in exchange for some merchandise, specifics of the merchandise haven’t been mentioned though. Musk has always expressed his firm views of the altcoin and has been supporting cryptocurrency for a while now.

Elon Musk aware of Bitcoin Lightning Network, yet favors DOGE

The Time Magazine named Elon Musk ‘The Person of The Year” for 2021. The owner of the Bitcoin account, ‘Bitcoin Meme Hub’ posted a video of the interview and tweeted that it’s almost 2022 and the CEO of Tesla should know about the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Under this Twitter huddle , Spencer Schiff stated,

“He does. He’s mentioned it before. But for some reason he’s still obsessed with Doge, which is bizarre”

Lightning Network(LN) is a second layer to Bitcoin’s blockchain which is adduced to unblock it’s network by creating micro-payment channels between two parties, which makes the transaction faster, cheaper and more readily approved than those conducted directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. The scalability of LN is quite high, as capable as millions to billions of transactions per second across the network. According to Spencer Schiff, Elon Musk is aware of how Bitcoin LN functions, but he still calls the meme coin, Dogecoin his favorite.

Musk, in Time’s interview, said that Dogecoin is better for transactions in many ways. At the time of writing, Dogecoin was priced at $0.1827 and enjoys a bullish market with a soar of 1.75% in the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network goes ballistic; Charts a new ATH

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Bitcoin [BTC] has been witnessing a price correction throughout the broader cryptocurrency market. However, the asset’s current price drawdown failed to impact the network’s Lightning protocol. In fact, the layer 2 solution has struck a new record in terms of capacity, hitting 3225 BTC. As observed by data analytic platform, Arcane research, the Public Lightning network capacity witnessed a massive acceleration following El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption as a legal tender last September.

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Lightning Network [L/N] is a second-layer scalability solution built on top of a bitcoin blockchain. It consists of multiple payment channels or getaways between users to carry out day-to-day asset transfers with fewer transaction fees. Working on a parallel chain reduces the burden on the parent chain and solves the scalability issue.

In addition to that, the LN consists of two types of channels: Public and Private. The Private channels are not visible to the network and are only recognized by the two involved nodes. There is also a possibility that entire nodes might remain hidden from the network. In fact, channels based on mobile wallets are private. This ensures the user’s privacy and effective routing of transactions.

Bitcoin’s LN latest real world use cases

The stability solution has seen a lot of traction owing to the announcements of several notable projects. Yesterday, Synonym Software Ltd., a subsidiary of Tether Holdings Limited, announced to build a product that will facilitate users to buy connections on the Lightning Network. Thus eliminating the users to go through the complex procedure of creating channels. Apart from that, the firm is also currently engaged in creating a mobile wallet compatible with Bitcoin and LN.

Aiming to promote Bitcoin adoption, CEO of Synonym John Carvalho said,

“Hyperbitcoinization won’t magically happen on its own… we need a strategy and ecosystem to replace the legacy economy.”

Additionally, Tron Weekly previously reported the LN’s official integration with a Switzerland-based crypto firm that further boosted its presence in the European market. Recently, the Bitcoin network officially activated the Taproot upgrade that comes with features like faster transaction, enhanced privacy, and smart contract functionality.

Lightning Network [LN] to debut in Swiss-based Bitcoin Suisse

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Bitcoin’s Lightning Network [LN] officially integrates into the payment module of Bitcoin Suisse, a Switzerland-based crypto-financial firm. According to the press release, the latest development is significant due to the fact that it became the first digital payment processor in the country to offer the scalability solution, thereby gaining the first-mover advantage in the crypto market. Additionally, retail consumers, as well as business clients working with Bitcoin Suisse and its associate Worldline, would both stand to benefit from the LN network’s faster transactions and cheaper costs.

Armin Schmid, Head of the Bitcoin Suisse Payment division, stated,

“Lightning transactions enable higher throughput per second at the price of a fraction of a cent – making them a game-changing innovation for crypto applications. Lightning transactions will thus play a vital role in scaling crypto applications and driving their transition to a mainstream application.”

On the same line, Sascha Münger Product exec of Worldline Crypto payments described the integration as a logical step moving forward against a common vision of enabling accessibility of crypto assets to its audience. Lauding the LN network for its ability to facilitate quick and cost-efficient transactions, the exec went on to add that by ‘aggregating transactions before getting mined on the blockchain, it significantly reduces energy costs per transaction and thereby supports Worldline’s ambition to lead the industry by example in introducing technological innovations to improve sustainability.’

Lightning network [LN] working principle

Developed by Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon in 2015, the Layer 2 payment protocol a.k.a Lightning network utilizes Bitcoin’s primary chain to carry out smaller transactions between users, away from the base layer of the blockchain. The principle of smart contracts aids in the final settlement of payments with full confidentiality. The users with the help of the payment channels can exchange with faster transactions and reduced wait times.

Lightning network in recent times

Interestingly, following the announcement, total value locked [TVL] reached a new all-time high of $219k at the time of writing, according to the analytics platform, defipulse.

The scalability solution has gained a lot of traction in recent times as a result of Twitter’s announcement of its usage for tipping.

Bitcoin [BTC] locked in Lightning Network hits ATH at 2.44k BTC

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Bitcoin, the dominant cryptocurrency in the cryptocurrency space, has its own ups and downs. Many proposals were made to address some of the issues. Among them was the Lightning Network protocol, which was introduced to address network scalability issues.

According to DeFi Pulse, Bitcoin [BTC] locked in Lightning Network reached an all-time high of 2.44k BTC on September 12th. The cryptocurrency locked in the second-layer scalability solution briefly slumped from 31 August to 3 September due to the crypto market’s back-to-back price corrections. Since then, the figures for BTC locked in LN have steadily risen in tandem with the cryptocurrency’s price recovery.

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Bitcoin [BTC] locked in Lightning Network hits ATH at 2.44k BTC 3

Bitcoin LN growth

On the other hand, the total value locked in LN in terms of USD peaked on September 7th at an ATH of $125.24 million. It has since declined slightly, but it is still close to the ATH. At press time, the figures stood at $111.17 million. Nonetheless, this is a positive development for the Bitcoin ecosystem. At a time when it is trading below the $45,000 mark after El Salvador adopted BTC as a legal tender, there has been further interest in the LN capacity.

Electra Group, one of Mexico’s biggest retail franchises, hinted at the possibility of adopting Bitcoin on the LN a few days back. On his most recent visit to the United States, Ukraine’s President, Volodymr Zelensky, held talks with crypto investors about the prospect of making Ukraine a digital asset hub.

LN, which has been lauded for its ability to reduce wait time and transaction fees, has garnered even more attention. This is evidenced by the fact that it has doubled its BTC capacity in a year, with over 70,000 open channels. In less than two months, from June to August 2021, there was a 46 percent rise. Constant technical up-gradation can extend the network’s reach as it evolves.

Bitcoin Lightning Network could soon see integration with Mexican financial giant

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Mexican financial and retailing corporation Grupo Elektra is all set to integrate support for the Bitcoin Lightning Network, according to its owner and businessman, Ricardo Salinas Pliego.

Pliego, who happens to be the third richest person in Mexico and leads one of the biggest conglomerates in the Latin American country with an estimated net worth of $15.4 billion, has been a proponent of Bitcoin [BTC]. Last November, he had revealed investing 10% of his portfolio in the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

More recently, the billionaire declared his intention that his bank, Banco Azteca, was in the process of becoming the first in the country to accept Bitcoin. However, Mexico’s central bank quickly shot down Pliego’s plans. It issued a statement saying cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are not legal tender and are prohibited from being used in the country’s financial system.

Bitcoin Lightning Network Growth

Nevertheless, Pliego’s latest announcement comes days after reports about the social network giant Twitter getting closer to integrating the Bitcoin lightning network for micropayments made rounds. The platform is currently in a testing phase for the operating system iOS Beta, according to the reports. The main aim behind this move is to facilitate a whole new payment option for users, alongside the already existing Cash App, Bandcamp, Patreon, Venmo, and PayPal, to reward content creators through the freshly launched feature “Tip Jar”.

Lightning Network is a second layer technology that has been ramping up BTC transactions since early 2018, thereby bolstering the adoption of the cryptocurrency. A brainchild of Lightning Labs, LN was proposed as a solution to the Bitcoin scalability problem. Three years ago, it had secured a whopping $2.5 million in seed funding that saw the participation of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, among others.

CoinShares investment strategist James Butterfill had earlier stated,

“Lightning is much more secure than Visa, and could do more transactions than Visa.”

Bitcoin.com’s Roger Ver Attacks Lightning Network While Community Comes to its Defense

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Bitcoin has had its fair share of detractors with several present even within the cryptocurrency industry. Since inception, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has witnessed several camps attack its credentials with some claiming that there were other ways to better use blockchain technology.

One of Bitcoin’s biggest critics was Roger Ver, who led the charge to create a new token called Bitcoin Cash by forking off Bitcoin. Since Bitcoin Cash was founded in 2017, Ver has not missed an opportunity to point out Bitcoin’s shortcomings. 

In his latest tweet, the founder of Bitcoin. com set his scope on the Bitcoin Lightning Network [LN]. Ver stated that the LN was an utter failure because it had not achieved any of the scaling milestones it had promised its user base. His tweet read:

Currently, there was Bitcoin worth $927.6 million locked in terms of dollars, a holding that had increased by 1 percent over the previous 24-hours. At the same time, the total Bitcoin-Ethereum pair was worth 2.6 million ETH while locked native BTC tokens amounted to 85.6K BTC. Ver’s comments received a lot of flak with the user base attacking Bitcoin Cash and its faults.

The LN community stated that Bitcoin Cash fell short of achieving the lofty milestones it had set itself with the cryptocurrency failing to make any significant impact on the charts. At press time, BCH was trading for $213 with a total market cap of $3.95 billion. A 2.16 percent price hike over the past day helped increase the daily trading volume to $1.28 billion. Despite his naysayers, Ver also had a staunch following who believed that the LN was nothing more than a diversion from actual developments in the space. This was put in words by Nanosapian, who tweeted:

“LN was never meant to work. It was meant to distract and redirect attention when scaling questions are asked.The reason is simple – BTC cannot scale and is now intended to be another custody solution. $NANO actually scaled while maxis lied.”

The Lightning Network was also in the news recently when the Lightning Network Daemon added accounting features to its network while upgrading c-lightning at the same time.

Bitfinex Announces Support for Lightning Network’s ‘Wumbo Channels’

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Leading cryptocurrency exchange, Bitfinex announced integrating Lightning Network’s Wumbo Channels to expedite payment transaction time, on its platform, enabling the exchange to provide users with instant Bitcoin deposit and withdrawal capabilities.

The Wumbo channels aim to offer the Bitfinex users the ability to deposit and withdraw large amounts of Bitcoin more efficiently and in a cost-effective way. This would eventually prompt retailers and service providers to build new, innovative applications and sell high-value goods and services over the Lightning Network with the help of Wumbo Channels as they help to reduce the requirements to open and close multiple channels, the blog post revealed.

Earlier, the protocol developers had set a hard cap on the maximum capacity of the Lightning Network payment channels in order to protect users from unexpected bugs or errors in the still-nascent network was still young, since its implementations were in a development phase.

But as the second-layer scalability solution became more mature, the major implementations of the Lightning Network protocol have measures to remove the hard cap on channel capacity, which had earlier thwarted the capability for unlimited channel sizes and payment amounts.

The official announcement further read,

“With this support, the general public will have the ability to open channels up to 2 Bitcoin capacity with either of our nodes. A number of initial retailers and wallet providers like Bitrefill, LnMarkets and Lightning Labs, with the ability to open channels with up to 5 Bitcoin capacity.”

While asserting that this development was in fact a “big step towards the goal of scaling Bitcoin” through the adoption of the Lightning Network, Bitfinex also revealed 3×5 Bitcoin channels, which are the biggest channels in the network so far.

Interestingly, Bitfinex was one of the first major crypto exchanges to have integrated the second-layer protocol on its platform in December 2019 shortly after integrating bech32 [SegWit] addresses the previous month as a primary step toward the full Lightning integration.

The Layer 2 protocol has seen a steady rise in terms of the total value locked [USD] in its. At the time of writing, this figure stood at $11.74 million.

DeFi Mania Eclipses Bitcoin’s Sidechain Liquid as Latter’s Figure Stagnates

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Despite being the undisputed leader of the cryptocurrency realm, Bitcoin blockchain has been riddled with scalability issues. Due to this, many implementations have been tried and tested to make the network more efficient.

One such is Blockstream’s sidechain-based settlement network, Liquid’ which is essentially a second layer solution for traders and exchanges, that enables faster, more confidential Bitcoin transactions and the issuance of digital assets.

L BTC in circulation

Despite being heralded as a promising solution to the network’s scalability problems, Liquid network figures appear to have stagnated. The circulation of L-BTC was on an uptrend since the beginning of the year. Rising from 600 L-BTC to 2,054 L-BTC, recording a growth of more than 242% in a period of just four months. However, post-April, the momentum appeared to have weakened. At the time of writing, there were 2,593 L-BTC in circulation, a rise of just 26% since April.

Ethereum- the unofficial sidechain for Bitcoin?

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Interestingly, this stagnation in Bitcoins locked on the popular sidechain coincided with the explosion of DeFi. The Ethereum network is becoming Bitcoin’s largest second layer network. This was evident from the fact that the number of Bitcoins “wrapped” and flowing on the Ethereum blockchain has been increasing at an incredible rate.

TWJ had earlier reported that Wrapped Bitcoins’s market capitalization hovering a little below $500 million.

Second-layer solutions struggle as Bitcoin continues to be channeled onto the Ethereum blockchain

Additionally, the total value locked [TVL] for BTC-pegged ETH tokens has surpassed both Liquid as well as the Lightning Network platform combined. At the time of writing, BTC locked in LN was just 1,068. While this does not give the full picture as Bitcoins held on LN is much higher than what is available with public data and not the ones from the private channels, this, however, tells us that the second layer solution is struggling to add more liquidity.

Is Ethereum Providing Better Bitcoin Scaling Solutions Than Bitcoin Itself?

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Bitcoin does a whole list of things that are right for the digital asset industry. ; The largest crypto has one of the most secure blockchains, a dependable insurance rate, and a complete decentralization structure.

In the midst of all of its proverbial advantages, the main issue of Bitcoin remains its ability to handle a higher number of transactions; in short, its scalability. The inability of the network to facilitate more transfer has caused network saturation, which in turn spikes up the transaction fee during high on-chain activity.

Now, in the last few years, a number of off-chain solutions have been proposed to solve this conundrum. Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and Blockstream’s Liquid have often led development, but over the past 12 months, Ethereum’s DeFi has also been a popular platform.

In a recent blog post of Arcane Research, the aforementioned off-chain solutions were reviewed to understand their present status.

Blockstream’s Liquid Network and the Lightning Network

Data from Arcane Research suggested that the Bitcoin sidechain Liquid, which processed faster transactions with the help of L-BTC has performed admirably since January 2020.

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According to the chart above, L-BTC in circulation during the month of January was close to 600 but since then, the sidechain has witnessed high adoption as the number of L-BTC has spiked up to 2476 in July 2020.

Lightning Network hasn’t been behind as well, but it is important to note that Bitcoin’s LN chain has received a lot of criticism over the past few months. Since its launch in 2018, it has been touted as the mainstream solution to solve BTC’s scaling problems but the narrative continues to be “underdevelopment”, in spite of launching back in January 2018.

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The above chart exhibits that over time, Bitcoin’s LN adoption rate is not exactly impressive but according to BitMEX Research, it is difficult to measure its exact adoption. The report suggested that 28% of LN channels are private as of January 2020, so BTC locked in those channels are not added up.

Ethereum’s WBTC; Tokenized Bitcoins taking the cake?

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Now, In spite of receiving mainstream adoption only in January 2020, tokenized Bitcoins on Ethereum is rapidly becoming a sought-out solution for scaling Bitcoin.

It is a completely separate off-chain platform where tokenizing BTC as an ERC-20 token enables functionality and makes it compatible with the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem.

Wrapped Bitcoin of WBTC is the largest BTC token on Ethereum and it currently holds 11136 BTC into its protocol. It completely blows Liquid and LN’s adoption out of the water in terms of growth.

Now, the major trade-off is the fact that tokenized BTC on Ethereum has a layer of centralization surrounding its development, and it is also more complex than using Bitcoin on its parent blockchain.

Conclusion

In terms of growth, tokenized Bitcoins on Ethereum are head and shoulders above Bitcoin sidechains and it is becoming rapidly evident that users are preferring Ethereum over Bitcoin’s blockchain but considering the likes of WBTC is completely centralized, Bitcoin sidechains may still have an advantage in the future, only if they can pump up their numbers and establish themselves as a legitimate solution.