the Start-up Bitrefill is working on the further development of the Lightning network. Compared to CoinDesk, the Swedish company revealed recent progress made in terms of usability of Lightning.

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10. January 2019TeilenFacebookTwitterLinkedInxingemail

Bitcoin has to scale. Because with block times of ten minutes, the crypto-currency will never be able to become a global means of payment. In order to improve the Suitability of Bitcoin as a means of payment, leads the crypto-community in General, two approaches to the field: First – and Second-Layer solutions. An example of a promising project, that Bitcoin can scale to the second level, is Lightning.

Advantageous to Lightning is (among other things) the open-source development. So various companies can work simultaneously on the development of the Second-Layer network.

Lightning light

An example of a Start-up dedicated to the work of Lightning, the Stockholm Start-up Bitrefill. The company focuses explicitly on the improved usability of Lightning for daily use. Because the distribution of the payment network suffers from technical hurdles, the potential users of Lightning must take before you can install a Channel. Exactly want to change Bitrefill and has, therefore, set up the Lightning-project Thor.

„Thor allows people to connect with the Lightning network, regardless of whether you have Bitcoin or not. All you need to do is download one of the supported Wallet Apps to install, and then you can buy a Channel in Bitrefill,“

says John Carvalho of Bitrefill to CoinDesk.

Typically, Lightning will need to Deposit user to an arbitrarily large sum of BTC in the Channel; the capacity of the channel can not exceed the sum deposited then. Advanced technical knowledge of the system, however, are generally necessary to bring only a few Bitcoin enthusiasts. The Thor Service aims, however, according to the Website, just this hurdle to dismantle and offers Lightning Channels for Everyone. Against BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE, and a DASH of Bitcoin can open up users to a Lightning Channel on the Thor Node, which remain according to its own information, for up to thirty days. To Carvalho:

„The idea here is to allow everyone in the Lightning network to start with, and to operate a Hot Wallet.“

A tutorial on how this works can be found here.

Lightning to the Moon

The advance of the Swedish Start-ups as further evidence for a progressive popularity of the payment network. Like BTC-ECHO reported, is the Expansion of Lightning as one of the great opportunities for Bitcoin in 2019, because the capacity is constantly growing. In December 2018, the network exceeded the historic mark of 500 BTC.