Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, announced on April 28 that 15% of the amount of transactions using Bitcoin (BTC) will be processed through the Second Lightning Network (LN) chain a year after the integration.
As reported by Cryptonotics, in April 2024, the cryptoactive exchange platform was associated with LightSpark, which focused on developing LN infrastructure, allowing users to use its Bitcoin scalability solution.
Neither Coinbase nor Lightspark provide specific data on the total number of Bitcoin operations or the number of transactions that make up 15% of it, but the team behind Lightspark said, “In less than a year, Lightning has been doing its job with a promising infrastructure experiment.” It’s an important part of how bitcoin works It is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges».
In that sense, the trend could continue to grow as a key channel to promote LN adoption, along with more than 50 million US users who can record daily trade volumes of $2.5 billion according to CoinmarketCap.
Impact on Bitcoin Adoption
Lightning networks designed to handle Bitcoin transactions outside the main network can run Almost instantaneous payment with significantly lower commissions From a transaction On-chain. This approach reduces the congestion of the Bitcoin network, but maintains the security and decentralization that characterizes it.
Through LN, users can make small and frequent payments, such as daily purchases and microtransactions. The progress in the use of LN, demonstrated by Coinbase, is related in the context of Bitcoin integrating the value reserve narrative and efficiently integrating the financial system as a person (P2P).
What is the current state of the network?
At the time of this article, the total capacity of the Lightning network channel is approximately 4,300 BTC, but this statistic was registered until February last year. Stability of approximately 5,000 BTC since 2022according to Mempool Explorer data.
However, from March 2022 onwards, The amount of channels has been reduced by halfAs can be seen in the graph below, today it ranges from about 80,000 to 40,000.
The reduction in LN channels does not affect the total capacity of this network, Reflects changes in usage dynamics Towards custody solutions. This promotes the user experience given that establishing and managing channels at the counterpart requires a higher level of technical knowledge.
Furthermore, in the following graph provided by Bitcoin visual, it is observed that the channels between channels (blue lines) between already connected nodes have fallen from 4,100 to 2,900 at the time of this writing. This data reinforces that idea Users have selected services that manage their payment channelsAs provided by exchange as Coinbase.
There are fewer nodes, but recovery signs
It is also important to emphasize the decrease in the number of LN nodes. According to Mempool.space, by March 2022 there were around 20,000 nodes, but now there are 16,500.
The reduction in the number of nodes is Users prefer to delegate channel management A professional service that reduces the need to operate your own nodes.
However, the most recent data shows possible changes in trends. It reports that at least 5,000 new nodes have been connected since November 2024 after a sustained fall that brought the lowest number of nodes since July 2023 to a minimum of 11,800 in 2023. This recovery Shows new interest in the network It suggests that nodes are betting on the potential adoption of LN.
Other cases of using Lightning networks
In addition to what Coinbase said and the increased adoption of Lightning Network, Cryptootics has recently reported an increase in the use of this network as well.
It’s a brain and ocean platform. The first of these pools was charged in a year Over 150,000 total miners via the Light Network Also, on March 11th, LN traded more than 1,000 times a day. To manage payments to miners through LN, Brains uses Voltage, a global platform that drives transactions on both Bitcoin and Stubcoin.
For that part, the sea did the same thing There are over 17,000 successful payments to miners operating there Bitcoin’s second layer payment protocol via Bolt12.
As Lightning Network adoption grows, the impact of this technology could expand beyond exchanges, reaching shops, payment applications and financial services that seek to take advantage of Bitcoin’s benefits as a means of exchange.
