It is pertinent for all cryptocurrencies to keep growing and evolving at all times. For Bitcoin and Litecoin, the Lightning Network is considered to be the “holy grail” of scaling and instant payments right now. While it remains to be seen if that will effectively be the case, it appears things are progressing smoothly. Litecoin still has a lot of catching up to do, but that is entirely to be expected.
Litecoin’s Lightning Network Continues to Expand
One particular aspect about the Lightning Network is how it is a technological implementation which doesn’t just work for Bitcoin. Any cryptocurrency which has activated Segregated Witness in the past – or plans to do so in the future – will be capable of enabling LN support at some point. Litecoin was the first major currency to enable SegWit even ahead of Bitcoin, thus it is only normal its community is exploring the Lightning Network as well.
So far, it seems the interest in this new technology as has been somewhat lackluster. While there are numerous payment channels, the figures are not necessarily getting people excited. Some recent changes have allowed the number of Lightning Network channels on Litecoin to rise to just above 1,000. An important first milestone, which can lead to even more payment channels being created over the coming months and years.
This increase in Litecoin LN payment channels coincides with a strong LTC price push. It has been well documented how the value of Litecoin has surpassed $50 in recent days. It is possible this rise in value has led to more LN payment channels being created, although that is always difficult to confirm. The current 1,012 channels are operated between 161 participants, further confirming this is still a rather small-scale effort. That situation will keep changing constantly, as cryptocurrencies are always evolving.
The Lightning Network for Litecoin – or any other currency – will stand or fall based on overall financial capacity. For Litecoin, there is just over $7,000 in “liquid funds”, which is not necessarily impressive. However, a few weeks ago, that figure sat at just under $4,000. A very promising increase in such a short span of time. It seems unlikely Litecoin’s LN will ever reach the same level as Bitcoin, although one never knows how things will pan out in a few months or years from now.
While the Litecoin statistics are not looking all that bad, Bitcoin is still dominating the landscape right now. With just over 7,000 LN nodes and nearly 32,000 payment channels, Bitcoin is doing quite well in this regard. Its overall network capacity has also risen to nearly $3m. A very solid figure, but there is always room for further improvements. That applies to both Bitcoin and Litecoin alike in this regard.
As both networks seem to note a hefty increase in Lightning Network activity, things will get very interesting in the coming months and years. Litecoin is an interesting “competitor” to Bitcoin in this regard, even though it is well behind the world’s leading cryptocurrency at this stage. It would also appear Litecoin is getting some Onion-capable Lightning network nodes as of late, which should yield some interesting use cases over time.
Disclaimer: This is not trading or investment advice. The above article is for entertainment and education purposes only. Please do your own research before purchasing or investing into any cryptocurrency.