More than 80% of respondents to an online survey believe Lightning is not real Bitcoin (BTC).
The poll, which asked thousands of X users whether Lightning is a successful BTC, sparked a lively debate on the platform over the weekend, and saw supporters like Alex Gladstein and Matt Corallo take on critics including Paul Storck on Lightning’s behalf.
Lightning is the largest and most ongoing attempt to reduce Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fee costs.
In fact, unlike BTC’s expensive on-chain transaction fees that can cost hundreds of basis points for small daily transactions, Lightning transaction fees often cost a fraction of a cent.
The network has long been promoted as the cheapest way to send and receive BTC while maintaining complete self-control. However, despite the rapid growth from 2019 to 2022; It has been stagnant for the past 3 years.
Stork insisted the results speak for themselves. “Lightning seems cool at first, but after six years, you realize it doesn’t work,” he concluded.
He also pointed out drawbacks to Lightning, such as the need for nodes to maintain internet connectivity and users’ dependence on large liquidity providers and watchtowers.
He then called the Bitcoin Lightning community a “cult” and concluded that it was being kept.
Protect the Lightning Network
Although he disagrees, Gladstein called Stork’s comments “really great” and reiterated his belief that Lightning will enable the use of BTC as digital cash.
Corallo disagreed with Sztorc, noting that Lightning has a large volume of small-value payments, estimating that “a double-digit percentage of BTC transactions are currently on Lightning.”
He called those who deny the Lightning’s success “out of touch with reality.”
Read more: ‘Buggy’ Bitcoin Lightning Network is slowly disappearing, critics claim
Lightning payment channel will be halved after 2022
In fact, many metrics of Lightning’s network health have remained flat for years.
The total BTC capacity in the publicly accessible network is approximately 4,800 BTC, which is the same amount as in September 2022. The total number of Lightning nodes has also remained flat since March 2022.
Even worse, payment channels within the Lightning Network Almost halved from March 2022 onwards Today, the number has increased from more than 80,000 to about 45,000.
While these are more centralized and have more trust in a centralized intermediary, other wrap products such as BTC-pegged assets like Coinbase’s cbBTC and spot ETFs dwarf Lightning transactions.
Udi Wertheimer pointed to the success of apps such as Moonshot, Base, and Fomo, which quickly enrolled millions of users in the cryptocurrency and boasted trading on BTC-pegged assets that surpassed Bitcoin’s on-chain activity.
Of the thousands of voters who took part in the social media poll, 80% agreed with the poll’s authors that Lightning is not real BTC. The author referred to BTC in the Lightning Network as “another token on another network”, even though Lightning BTC does not have a different market capitalization than BTC itself.
Joining and exiting the Lightning Network requires on-chain transactions to open and close payment channels, respectively.
Once a user acquires BTC within Lightning, they will be transacting off-blockchain through a web of nodes. Nodes must be honest about their state to avoid penalties in the form of fair trade.
Many efforts are underway to ease the burden of channel opening and closing transactions for everyday users, such as splicing.
