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How Big Is Bitcoin’s Lightning Network? The Answer Will Surprise You

The Lightning Network is one of the most bullish developments that the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen so far. And all the available metrics point up, a healthy and vibrant network is brewing. However, investor Kevin Rooke took a deeper look and found out that the Lightning Network is probably even bigger than previously thought. “Inaccurate comparisons and privacy preserving features make it hard to truly understand how big the Lightning Network is.”

Related Reading | Bitcoin Lightning Network Reaches Record Capacity

What does Rooke mean by that? Let’s find out.

The Lightning Network By The Numbers

A casual look at popular analytics platform 1ml tells us that, at the time of writing, The Lightning Network is composed of 24,688 nodes, 64,577 channels, and the network capacity is 2,272.89 BTC. All of those numbers are up. However, “The Lightning Network is not a borrowing protocol, an AMM, or a store of value. Furthermore, the idea that Bitcoin is “locked” on the Lightning Network is misleading at best.”

There are a number of DeFi protocols that have a much higher number of BTC “locked,” and people mistakenly compare that number to the Lightning Network ‘s capacity. In DeFi, usually, the funds are in fact locked and can’t be touched until the contract in question runs its course. In Lightning, things are quite different: 

As explained in the book Mastering the Lightning Network, funds that are added to the Lightning Network are not locked, they are unleashed. As soon as a new Lightning channel is opened, those funds can be sent anywhere on the Lightning Network in an instant, and for almost no cost.

And speaking about channels, Kevin Rooke talked about them in an “investor letter” dated June 28th:

There are currently over 51,800 channels routing payments between 22,000 nodes, and 21% of those Lightning Network channels were created in the last 30 days.

On the surface, 21% monthly channel growth seems impressive, but new channel creation is a slightly misleading metric as nodes frequently open and close new channels.

A more accurate measure of growth is that the total number of channels on the Lightning Network is up by 10.8%, or over 5,000 channels in the last month.

Compare that to the more recent number that we gave you at the beginning of the section and note how the number of channels grew in just a month and a half. That’s not all, take into account that:

Some nodes don’t want their channels to be included in the public Lightning Network graph, and instead choose to open ‘unadvertised’ or ‘private’ channels.

BTC price chart for 08/13/2021 on FTX | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Privacy Doesn’t Let Us See How Much Money Goes Through Lightning

Most of the transactions that take place inside the Lightning Network are private. Only at the time of settlement between two parties are the final numbers forever registered into the Bitcoin blockchain. That means it’s impossible to know exactly how much money is going through Lightning on any given day. Or in total. 

Related Reading | Bitcoin Community Celebrates as Crucial Lightning Network Project Launches

However, Rooke estimates that “annual on-chain volume is almost 6x higher than the value locked into the Bitcoin network, despite the relatively high transaction fees and slow block times that make payments cumbersome.” That’s on the main Bitcoin chain. 

The Lightning Network is designed for making fast and inexpensive payments, so if $85 million of Bitcoin is already on the Lightning Network, it would make sense for annual payment volume to be at least 6x higher, or at least $510M.

That’s a bare minimum. And things are just getting started. In September, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law goes into effect and the whole country will start using the Lightning Network. And take into account that roughly a quarter of El Salvador’s GDP comes from remittances, so it’s not a stretch to think that Salvadoreans all over the world will start using it as well. Add to that Jack Dorsey’s projects, both Square and Twitter are looking into Lightning integration.

In fact, Dorsey published this tweet yesterday:

Agreed.

Every account on Twitter being able to link to a Lightning wallet however…

— jack⚡️ (@jack) August 12, 2021

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. For more impressive numbers and deductions, be sure to read “The Lightning Network Is Bigger Than You Think.”

Featured Image by Anuraj SL from Pixabay – Charts by TradingView

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What If Elon Musk Is Just Making “Noob” Crypto Mistakes?

Is Elon Musk playing 4D chess or is he just making rookie mistakes? It’s easy to judge the unfortunate and inaccurate message those tweets contained, but, what if Elon simply doesn’t know better? What if the billionaire doesn’t have a master plan and instead is just learning right in front of our eyes? It’s certainly a possibility. At least that’s what TV personality and Bitcoin advocate Max Keiser thinks:

Even though Mr. Musk has been around cryptocurrencies for a long time, he’s only been into cryptocurrencies for a few months. Luckily for us, our sister site Bitcoinist is on the case from the very beginning. Let’s examine Elon’s history with blockchain-technology-related projects and try to figure out his master plan or lack thereof. It’s the least we can do.

Could Elon Musk Be Satoshi Nakamoto?

Three years ago, the billionaire had to respond to the world:

“Not true. A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years (sic), but I don’t know where it is,” he wrote in response to a recent blog post whose author, Sahil Gupta, said Musk was “probably” Nakamoto.
“Satoshi could be a collaboration of Musk, Nick Szabo, and Hal Finney. But it seems more likely that Elon read their research papers, took inspiration from them, and built the product solo,” Gupta had mused.

Even though back then Musk had nothing to do with cryptocurrencies, he was in the same orbit. And the crypto community tried to pull him in using various tactics.
DOGE price chart for 05/27/2021 - TradingView

DOGE price chart on Bitfinex | Source: DOGE/USD on TradingView.com

The CEO Of Dogecoin

Two years ago, the Dogecoin community crowned him CEO. As you might imagine, the coin registered its first Elon-pump: 

The effect on Dogecoin was immediate and decisive: as of press time, the altcoin had made daily gains against the US dollar of almost 35 percent.

DOGE/USD currently trades around $0.0033, its highest since early November.

Elon Musk quickly gained the attention of the cryptocurrency community on Twitter, with traders extrapolating potential endorsement of the wider industry beyond DOGE.

And even though Musk immediately resigned to the Doge CEO position, the relationship between the billionaire and the joke-cryptocurrency would prove to be stronger than anyone thought.

Related Reading | Goldman Sachs Exec Says Much Nope To Firm After Making Millions On Dogecoin

Elon Musk’s Initial Views On Crypto

A year ago, the billionaire finally spoke publicly about cryptocurrencies in his own “Third Row Tesla Podcast”. Bitcoinist reported:

He likes the concept and thinks that it is ‘clever.’ However, he also has concerns regarding their role in making illegal transactions. He said,

There are transactions that are not within the balance of the law. And there are, obviously, many laws in different countries. And, normally, cash is used for these transactions. But, in order for illegal transactions to occur, cash must also be used for legal transactions. You need an illegal-to-legal bridge. That’s where crypto comes in.

Oh, the “criminals use Bitcoin” argument. The first question every noob encounters. We hope that Elon already figured out that every transaction made stays engraved in the blockchain forever. And that fact is not ideal for criminals, as the DarkSide saga proves.

Tesla Adds Bitcoin To Its Balance Sheet

A mere four months ago, Bitcoin got the Elon-pump. His company was in the process of acquiring BTC and:

Elon Musk’s addition of “#Bitcoin” to his Twitter bio and potential buying activities undoubtedly played a huge role in this rally.

The coin went from $32K to $38K, and then it was up-only for a while. A few months later, Elon answered “true” to a tweet about Bitcoin and renewable energy. Bitcoinist reported:

An April tweet that proves that Elon had been thinking about the subject. Not only that, he agreed with Jack Dorsey when he made this statement: “Bitcoin incentivizes renewable energy.” Talk about a smoking gun.

A few weeks later, Elon announced in an infamous tweet that Tesla wasn’t accepting more Bitcoin payments for environmental concerns. And all hell broke loose. 

BTC price chart for 05/27/2021 - TradingView

BTC price chart on Gemini | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

Maybe Elon Musk Has Not Done His Homework?

It’s hard to believe that Tesla invested more than a billion dollars in Bitcoin without researching the environmental part of the equation. But then again, while defending his position, Elon made clear that he doesn’t know the difference between the nodes and the miners:

While the fact that most miners were in China is not ideal, the nodes control the Bitcoin network. And those are spread all over the world. And anyone could start operating one by following a few easy steps, even you.

And then, just three weeks ago, he said the darndest thing about Dogecoin. Bitcoinist reported:

With his distinctive sense of humor, Musk finds it ironic that this nascent class, with the potential to be the world’s reserve currency, to be spearhead by a project that started as a joke. Musk said:

Which one it is going to be? Maybe it’ll be multiple, it should be considered speculation at this point. The point is that Dogecoin was invented as a joke, as essentially to make fun of cryptocurrencies. Fate loves irony, what it would be the most ironic outcome? That the currency that was invented as a joke, in fact becomes the real currency. To the moon!

That’s cute! Nevertheless, Doge fundamental characteristics make it an impossible outcome. The supply is unlimited and the system mints an absurd amount of new coins every day. If the world wants a perpetual-printing machine that devalues the holder’s coins by the minute, it already has the Fiat system.

And, mind you, the perpetual printing was the main part of the Doge joke. It seems that the punchline flew over Elon’s head.

Related Reading | Binance Burns Record $600 Million BNB In Its 15th Quarter

So, Could Elon Be Just Making Noob Mistakes? 

When a great mind accompanied by a big ego encounters Bitcoin, it immediately gravitates towards trying to fix it. Elon is not the first and will not be the last. Every great Bitcoin thinker out there had an Altcoin phase. They all thought that maybe a new idea had come along that made Bitcoin obsolete. 

Eventually, they all realize that Bitcoin is more of a miracle than a technology. That the economic incentives are right where they belong, and that it’s a machine with the potential of improving the world for everyone.

Maybe Max Keiser is right and Musk just isn’t there yet. 

If that’s what’s happening, we can probably count on his genius to figure all of this out.

Let’s hope he does it sooner than later.

Featured Image by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash - Charts by TradingView