Research reports have shown that bitcoin‘s layer 2 scaling solution, the lightning network – a layer separate from the main chain but that interacts with the bitcoin network, has experienced significant growth of 1,212% in the space of two years.
bitcoin Lightning Network reaches new heights
According to the report Of bitcoin financial services, River Financial, Lightening Network’s 1,212% growth accounted for transactions routed. Routed transactions basically involve more than two nodes, so the above figure could be significantly higher. The network’s routed transactions have increased impressively from 503,115 in August 2021 to 6,599,553 in August 2023.
In the report, River research analyst Sam Wouters said the numbers “came a shock” due to the decline in bitcoin (btc) price and substantial loss of interest in online searches.
This is because the report revealed that the price of bitcoin has fallen by 44%, while online searches for the leading cryptocurrency have fallen by 45% since then, but the Lightning Network continues to grow.
Wouters said he was so surprised by the numbers that he had to run them “many times” while validating the calculations with outside parties. Therefore, the research analyst highlighted that the Lightning Network has achieved a lot despite the ongoing bear market and having only 5,000 btc locked on the network.
<img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-259381 aligncenter" src="https://technicalterrence.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/A-market-analyst-expressed-surprise-at-this-growth-rate-of.png" alt="bitcoin Lightning Network” width=”640″ height=”380″ srcset=”https://technicalterrence.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/A-market-analyst-expressed-surprise-at-this-growth-rate-of.png 640w, https://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-11-at-14.22.10-980×581.png 980w, https://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-11-at-14.22.10-768×455.png 768w, https://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-11-at-14.22.10-750×445.png 750w, https://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-11-at-14.22.10-1140×676.png 1140w, https://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-11-at-14.22.10.png 1332w” sizes=”(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px”/>
Source: River Financial
Wouters took to his official X account (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, October 10, 2023 to share The recent report on Lightning Network highlights the growth of the network.
However, Fiatzaf, the creator of the decentralized social network Our He wasn’t as surprised by the network’s growth as Wouters. The creator stated that he believes the numbers reflect “natural growth” due to the tiny nature of the network.
Until now, the lightning network It has also seen a significant increase in transaction volume over the last 2 years. As of August 2021, the network’s transaction volume was estimated at $12.1 million and 303 btc. However, in August 2023, the network’s transaction volume increased to an estimated $78.8 million and 2,950 btc, indicating an increase of 546% and 874% respectively.
Additionally, the average size of Lightning transactions was approximately 44,700 satoshis or $11 in August 2023. However, in September 2023, the average Lightning transaction size was estimated at 279,000 Satoshis, with 1.1 million active Lightning users.
The report also highlighted the network’s capacitybitcoin-news/lightning-network-hits-record-highs-in-bitcoin-and-us-dollar-capacity/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”> Lightning payments success rate in August 2023, which was around 99.7% on its platform in 308,000 transactions. The Lightning Network now processes no less than 47% of bitcoin on-chain transactions.
Gaming and other sectors attributed to growth
According to the report, other sectors such as gaming, social media tipping, and streaming contributed to the significant growth of the Lightning Network.
However, the one sector Wouters said he didn’t see coming was the gaming sector, which had a huge impact on the network’s growth rate with hundreds of thousands of active users tuning into the gaming sector each month.
In the report, it was seen that 25% of all network activity between 1 and 10 sessions (or $0.0002) went to the gaming and streaming sectors. While another 25% in 10 to 1,000 sessions crashed, and anything above 10,000 appears to be for node balancing, remittances, and trading.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://technicalterrence.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Bitcoin-Supply-Metric-Hits-New-All-Time-High-Time-to-Reverse" alt="Tradingview.com bitcoin Price Chart (Lightning Network)” width=”2804″ height=”1746″/>
btc price struggles to maintain $27,000 support | Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from Tradingview.com
