Bitcoin Lightning Network Growth Up 1,200% In 2 Years.

Bitcoin's Layer 2 Lightning Network has seen growth of 1,212 percent in two years.

In the year As of August 2023, the network has recorded approximately 6.6 million transferred transactions.

Amazing growth in the midst of market challenges

River Research analyst Sam Waters explained this remarkable development in an October 10 report. Despite a 44% drop in bitcoin prices and a drop in online interest, the number of transactions has increased, which Waters joked on Twitter: “‘Nobody's using Lightning.'

“No one uses lightning” should be a dead meme by now.

Launching a new #Bitcoin report from @River: How the Lightning Network grew by 1212% in 2 years ⚡

It's time to pay attention to the amazing work of many people in the space 👇 link below at 🧵 pic.twitter.com/FuGLwGHR4R

— Sam Wouters (@SDWouters) October 10, 2023

It's important to note that River's report of 6.6 million lightning transactions is taken as a conservative lower estimate. The company acknowledges its inability to review private Lightning transactions or transactions between two participants.

According to River's report, in terms of transaction volume, Lightning made $78.2 million in August 2023, a 546 percent increase from K33's $12.1 million in August 2021. Lightning now handles at least 47% of Bitcoin's on-chain transactions, reflecting the growing importance of the exchange.

The average lightning transaction volume in August 2023 was 44,700 satoshis or $11.84. In September, there were an estimated 279,000 and 1.1 million Lightning users. Significant traffic growth of 27 percent is attributed to gaming, social media referrals and streaming.

High success rate and future implications

River reported a 99.7% success rate for lightning payments on the platform in August 2023 with 308,000 transactions. Payment method liquidity constraints were identified as the main cause of transactions.

The River dataset consists of 2.5 million transactions and the nodes in this dataset cover 29% of the network's total capacity and 10% of payment channels.

The continued expansion of the Lightning Network, coupled with the incredible volume of transactions, raises questions about the future of Bitcoin trading.

Lightning's performance in terms of the speed of on-chain Bitcoin transactions suggests that Bitcoin's transition to a widely accepted form of commerce is well underway.