Lightning Network continues to soar as network capacity reaches 1,000 Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network has reached a remarkable network capacity high of 1,000 BTC, worth approximately $4,250,000.

Just two weeks ago, Coin Rivet reported on how the Lightning Network had reached a capacity of 750 BTC. At the time, it marked a 40% growth within a month as the number of payment channels rose from 8,000 to 32,000.

According to data taken from 1ml.com, the number of payment channels currently open now sits at 39,408, marking a 44.4% increase in the last 30 days.

The number of nodes has also risen by 17% in the last 30 days, meaning there is now just shy of 7,500 active nodes.

As a result, the network capacity has soared to 1,067 BTC, cementing a 53% increase in the last month. The network capacity is now worth $4,252,000.

The Lightning Network has been live for a little over a year, and this new landmark illustrates the network’s rapid growth in such a short period of time.

What is the Lightning Network?

The Lightning Network is a Layer-2 scaling solution. The purpose of the network is to help Bitcoin with its scalability issues.

While Bitcoin presents a tangible alternative payment system, it currently cannot compete with mainstream payment processors such as PayPal or Visa.

The Bitcoin network is designed to enable a fresh block of information to be sequenced every ten minutes. Within each block is a number of transactions that have to be verified by data miners.

As a result, Bitcoin can only handle a finite amount of transactions and it takes at least ten minutes for transactions to be approved and verified.

PayPal and Visa can handle exponentially more transactions inside of a ten minute time frame.

However, with the addition of the Lightning Network, Bitcoin could, in theory, handle significantly more transactions, which might help it rival the likes of PayPal.

Interested in reading more Lightning Network-related news? Discover more about the Lightning Network and what could be coming next.