Let’s take a look at the Bitcoin Lightning Network. I know it’s controversial, BCH fans as well as BSV fans tear it apart on a daily basis but then again they do the same to each other. I’m not in a certain camp, I’m an investor in all 3 Bitcoin and promote all 3 to my clients.
I do want to provide relative and important information to my clients as well as the general public so they can make the best choice for themselves.
So let’s do this.
The LN currently has 14,783 nodes with 35,638 channels. For a network which some say nobody is using it’s doing very well. In fact as you’ll soon see there are many more nodes on the LN than on BCH and BSV blockchains.
Another hit on LN you’ll hear is that the network capacity is only 1,051 BTC or about $19 million as you see above. What the detractors don’t tell you is that the capacity is kept small on purpose. The LN is still a very young technology, it’s a second layer solution for the Bitcoin blockchain and the community of developers have set limits on capacity to protect all those using this new technology. It’s the responsible thing to do for sure.
Currently channels can hold up to 0.16777215 BTC and the payment limit is set at 0.04294967 BTC. A new technology just released on the LN called Wumbo is being built to lift these limits in a safe manner. Wumbo is very new and although there are a few nodes running it, it’s my opinion that it’s not yet ready for mass adoption by the nodes. It still has some flaws but it will be fixed soon and once Wumbo is set on LN in a secure manner we will see the majority of nodes lift their limits.
As you see above the average node capacity is just under the limits set by the developers. Again it’s not something to criticize, rather it’s something to applaud as the community of developers are doing the right thing.
Now let’s look at BSV, it has just 290 nodes. Yes I’ve heard it before, the proponents of Bitcoin SV claim ALL 290 nodes are working nodes and not just listening nodes like the majority on BTC. Well we now know, at least on the Lightning Network, the nodes on BTC are not just listening. The nodes on LN are working nodes and dwarf the amount of nodes that are on Bitcoin SV.
And how about Bitcoin Cash? Well BCH has 1,312 nodes but that’s including BCHN and BCHABC, we all know ABC has forked from BCH just last week. That fork has now reduced BCH nodes by 438, giving BCH only 874 nodes.
Now that might be better than BSV’s node count of 290 but it’s a far cry from Bitcoin Lightning Network node count of over 14,000.
Now you can make an informed decision for yourself. Just a reminder I’m an investor in all 3 of these Bitcoin, I’m just here laying out the facts so that the public and my clientele can make the best decision for themselves.
Nice