Bitcoin Lightning Network adoption surges ahead of bear market.

The Bitcoin Lightning network has seen impressive growth over the past two years, despite the recorded crypto winter. Moreover, the findings were published in a new report from the Bitcoin technology and financial services company River.

On October 10, Bitcoin brokerage and security services firm River released a research report on Lightning's development of a layer-2 metering solution.

Lightning network transactions congestion

River measured the growth of the Lightning Network in terms of transactions. In the year It reports that there are at least 6.6 million transferred Lightning Network transactions in August 2023.

The total was around $78 million, up more than 500% from August 2021.

“This growth was despite a 44% drop in Bitcoin prices and a 45% drop in search demand.”

The top use cases driving marketing growth are gaming, social media recommendations and streaming, it said, driving 27 percent of all growth.

The average lightning transaction amount was around $11.84, the study found. Moreover, the distribution of the size of most of the payments is too small to be comparable on the basis of the Bitcoin blockchain.

“Lightning is effectively extending Bitcoin's utility by enabling low-cost payments on the Internet.”

As of September 2023, there are estimated to be between 279,000 and 1.1 million monthly active Lightning users.

Lightning activity is more global and hourly than last year, he said.

Additionally, the number of nodes, channels and capacity have remained constant over the past year as nodes become more efficient. According to Bitcoinvisuals, the current LN capacity is 5,283 BTC, which is around $146 million.

River reports that 173 companies have been identified across 28 lightning industry sectors, and the ecosystem is expanding.

Guardian users dominate.

Sam Waters, who presented the report,

“No One Uses Lightning” Mimi is dead.

He concluded that the real debate is around the use of non-sustaining and fostering LN. This indicates whether users hold BTC or not.

The study showed a ratio of non-custodial users of around 1:8. This means that most LN users are using exchanges or intermediary service providers. Waters added:

“Making unregulated use as attractive as tote bags is a challenge that will likely require more developers, companies and capital to help figure it out.”

In summary, key future growth drivers are greater exchange adoption, select technical improvements, and non-Bitcoin businesses adopting Lightning.