Bitcoin’s [BTC] Lightning Network breaches the 600 BTC mark in terms of network capacity

Bitcoin’s [BTC] Lightning Network breaches the 600 BTC mark in terms of network capacity

In welcome news to Bitcoin enthusiasts everywhere, the Lightning Network on Bitcoin passed a capacity of 600 BTC for the very first time. This milestone marks a significant moment for a cryptocurrency that has struggled with issues of efficiency and scalability since its inception.

In data recorded by 1ML.com, a monitoring website, the milestone was achieved early on 30 January, with the mainnet lightning network capacity added to by a significant 21 BTC over the past 24 hours. This is over and above the 15 percent growth rate the Lightning Network’s capacity has grown by over the past month. The Lightning Network has a present capacity at 601 BTC, which is valued at over $2 million.

However, network capacity isn’t the only positive metric that points towards the growing success of the Lightning Network. At the time of press, there has been a nearly 16 percent growth in the number of nodes in the network while the number of channels has risen by a staggering 35 percent.

The milestone comes soon after the success of the ‘Lightning Torch’ initiative, under which a lightning payment was passed between nodes, with every recipient user being awarded a set amount of Satoshis. This effort was meant to test the Lightning Network’s strength and scalability while nodes and users of the initiative added to the size of the network.

Although still far from a success story, the Lightning Network’s achievement is slowly contributing to Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency’s efforts to scale on a larger scale so as to cater to the ever-rising number of cryptocurrency users. Over resolving the scalability issues, the Lightning Network also offers a new degree of speed and efficiency with respect to micro-payments, something Bitcoin has been lacking for quite some time now. The LN adds to Bitcoin’s blockchain and allows users to create a channel between users who can then use it to transfer money in a two-way fashion with minimal or no fees at all.

There have even been suggestions that the Bitcoin Lightning Network may be performing at a quicker pace than the altcoins that originated to overhaul BTC’s slow processing speeds. In fact, Bitrefill has suggested that not only have Lightning Network payments been growing daily but, they also account for more payments than any other altcoins, maybe even double their volume of payments. If true, LN would account as a genuine threat to the existence of altcoins.

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