Bitcoin users from around the world have high expectations when it comes to the Lightning Network. However, the new technology that should solve the scalability problem of the Bitcoin network is not so close to its final implementation. Some users performed certain tests with the Lightning Network in the Bitcoin test network and those tests produced good results. Lower commissions and faster transactions are the main problems of the Bitcoin blockchain network today and the Lightning Network is supposed to solve these problems.
The Bitcoin ecosystem is suffering from a scalability problem for several years now. The users are used to the high commissions and slow transactions by now and this situation is less than ideal for the most popular cryptocurrency in the world.
The Bitcoin test network offers the possibility to test the functionality of the Lightning Network for the time being. It looks like the new technology is fulfilling its initial promise to make the transactions faster and the commissions lower. However, it is impossible to achieve better results with the regular Bitcoin transactions. It used to be pretty cheap to use bitcoin, but things changed considerably some time ago.
A user called Michael Landau published a tweet after performing tests with the Lightning Network. He said: “Hello @lightning! Just made first Lightning payment on Bitcoin testnet. Amazing. confirmed in 2 seconds, paid 0.000001 in fees (would be 1 cent on BTC mainnet). Similar feeling of amazement to the first time I sent a bitcoin years ago.”
It is obvious that the Lightning Network will help scaling bitcoin, but it remains to be seen if this solution will be implemented in time. Bitcoin lost a good portion of its attraction in the last few months. Many altcoins are becoming attractive because they are faster and easier to use. However, bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency in the world dominating the global market.
It is still not clear when the Lightning Network might be implemented in the Bitcoin network, but the aforementioned tests are a positive sign for the new technology. We will have to wait and see what the future will bring.
