Exploring Bitcoin’s Lightning Network

The Lightning Network is arguably the most anticipated scaling solution for Bitcoin to date. Why isn’t everyone using it?

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This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io, KuCoin and DeFiHorse.

The Lightning Network is arguably the most anticipated scaling solution for Bitcoin to date. Why isn’t everyone using it?

“Speaking of Bitcoin” hosts Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Stephanie Murphy are joined by Rene Pickhardt, Bitcoin and Lightning Network Developer. The four lead a conversation on the still-in-development yet rapidly growing Lightning Network. It’s a second-layer network that enables fast, secure, private and inexpensive payments that don’t make sense to store on bitcoin’s base layer. But while that might sound ideal, it’s not simple in practice. A scrappy community of companies and developers have been pushing the tech consistently forward as the number of hard problems still to solve ticks down.

Even as early as we are, Lightning has proven to be a radical improvement on the user experience of Bitcoin. On the Bitcoin network, fees vary but typically range from $1 to $5 and complete with confirmation in an average of ten minutes. With Lightning, fees and transaction times drop dramatically: the transaction fees are generally 1/100th or 1/10th of a penny and take just seconds.

If the improvements of Lightning are clear, why isn’t everyone using it today? Listen to hear more about the challenges and solutions coming to this rapidly evolving aspect of Bitcoin.

Additional reading:

Album art created using AI by Adam Levine/Pixelmind.ai

HOST

Adam B. Levine

Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as the editor of its new audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the Spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of "Steemit"; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.

With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Adam owns some BTC, ETH and small positions in a number of other tokens.