What is Bitcoin Lightening Network

What is Bitcoin Lightening Network*

Introduction:

Cryptocurrency is a complicated technology with many complex ideas and origins. I am an enthusiastic reader of articles here on Hive hich describe and explain the many revolutionary technologies which exist within this field. I often see people describe things in different terms and different detail, and then see the discrepancies between the descriptions, and sometimes the arguments regarding which viewpoint is correct. These disagreements remind me of the the famous childrens fable called the four blind men and the elephant.
In that childrens story four blind men encountered an elephant in a forest. The first blind man described the elephant according to what he could feel, the trunk and tusks. The second blind man described the elephant according to what he could feel, the tail and the butt or backside. The third blind man described the elephant as a huge wall because all he could feel was the huge side body portion of the elephant. While the fourth blind man described the elephant as a massive round tree trunk because all he wrapped his hands around was the elephants massive leg.
In this childrens fable each blind man described the elephant differently, and each was passionate about believeing that their description was accurate. The child who hears this story realizes that each was correct, but also incorrect. They were all accurately describing the elephant, but each was limited by what they could personally feel, when they touched the elephant.
The take home lesson for the children was that sometimes when something is very big or very complex, we can only touch, see of experience part of it. This reflects our point of view. The world and many things in it are very big or very complex. This size and complexity sometimes means we get an incomplete view of the world and things it contains. Only by combining our view point with those of others can we sometimes see the entirety of something and fully understand it.
So I am attempting to reconstruct their wisdom here, by publishing multiple views of the elephant or in this case the Lightening Network, which although it is just a small part of the cryptocurrency technological world, it is a complex subject.
I think we get a better understanding of the Lightening Network and it's functionality by reading different articles, which describe it's differently. Personally, as I read I am delighted to learn different things or understand different aspects of it from these different points of view. The different words chosen to describe the same functons often gives me a better understanding of the Lightening Network's functionality, strengths and weaknesses. I think that by combining those points of view I am closer to a complete picture.

Body

Articles on Lightening Network

The First Article titled "Bitcoin Lightening a brief-explainer". It is written by @shortsegments .
This article's strength is that it explains the Lightening Network in terms the Hive Community members can understand by comparing it to a situation on Hive, which we already understand. It helps us better understand Lightening Network as an unknown entity by comparing it to something we know on Hive-Engine.

If you. are familiar with the Hive Blockchain, and it's side chain called Hive-Engine, which is a sidechain of Hive, so it is connected to the Hive blockchain, but it allows functionality not possible on the Hive Blockchain.
Bitcoin Lightening or more precisely it's actual name Lightening Network is very similar to Hive-Engine in that it is a side chain of the Bitcoin blockchain, which has functionality that Bitcoin doesn't have.
The main functionalities that Lightening brings to the Bitcoin ecosystem is (1) higher speed (faster) and (2) lower transaction costs (cheaper).

Other interesting things in this article were:

Lightening Network is ... faster then the fastest transaction processing network in the world run by Visa Credit Card Services, a multi-billion dollar global corporation.
The Visa Credit Card Network is reported to have a top speed of one million transactions per second or 1 million TPS
The Lightening Network or Bitcoin Lightening as it is commonly known reportedly has a speed of one million transactions per second, but has the potential to run at speeds of 47 million transactions per second.
Both of these Networks are faster then the Bitcoin blockchain, whose fastest speed is 7 transactions per second.
In defense of Bitcoin, I should mention that when Bitcoin was invented, it was compared to human transaction speed, as there were no cryptocurrency blockchains to compare it to. And the fastest human transaction speed was one transaction per 15 minutes. So Bitcoins speed of 420 per minute or over 6000 transactions in 15 minutes was considered very, very fast.
[Source]
@shortsegments/bitcoin-lightening-a-brief-explainer

Bitcoin's Lightning Network: written by Investopedia author.

This is a nice description of the Lghtening Network by a Traditional Finance Education Site. It gives us a different perspective and different vocabulary then cryptocurrency afficionados would use.
This explanation will be more useful to people outside the cryptocurrency community to help them understand the importance of the Lightening Network.

The Lightning Network is a second layer added to Bitcoin's network, enabling transactions between parties off the main blockchain—called off-chain transactions. Lightning Network has often been advertised as a game-changer in the cryptocurrency's evolution. It is designed to speed up transaction processing times and decrease the associated costs of Bitcoin's blockchain. The lightning network was conceived by two developers, Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon in 2015.

What is the Lightning Network? by @bitpay

This article is yet another viewpoint describing the off chain nature of Lightening Network transactions, discussing decentralization, mentioning the benefits speed and cost, but also opening our eyes to the fact that a side chain of Bitcoin provides us some of Bitcoins legendary security, not unlike the side chains of ethereum, which are called not side chains but second layer solutions.
The more you read, the more you realize that much of the confusion in cryptocurrency is the choice of vocabulary and point of view. The tyranny of terminology was what I called it when I first learned about cryptocurrency. LOL!

The Lightning Network is a secondary layer on the Bitcoin blockchain which allows users to create payment channels where transactions can occur away from the main blockchain, but still benefit from the blockchain’s security and decentralization. These are known as off-chain transactions. The second layer offers speed, cost savings and scalability for the entire Bitcoin network.
Source: https://bitpay.com/blog/what-is-the-lightning-network/

The Lightning Network - enabling scalable Blockchains! by @vikbuddy

A nice historical perspective view on Lightning Network which gives a slightly different viewpoint and some new information we didn't get in other articles.

Lightning Network is a project that emerged to add intelligent contracts at Bitcoin Blockchain, of course, if it has its own software and is totally independent of Bitcoin, with its own nodes and network, even This can operate in other Blockchain. It began being developed by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja (although the project is currently taken Blockstream, Lightning Labs and ACIN). Lightning Network is described in its Whitepaper as a solution to the growing bitcoin scalability problem, network that can only process blocks every 10 minutes and that it impossible would improve it from that due to the structure in which it works, say how bitcoin is made , then this project seeks to implement a type of P2P payment channels that will work in isolation to the network. It is expected that millions of transactions per second are expected to be allowed, with the assurance that they will be signed by a special hash through an intelligent contract, which will give security to the parties that are involved in any transaction that occurs in the network.
Source below:
@vikbuddy/the-lightning-network-enabling-scalable-blockchains

How does Bitcoin get scalable with the Lightning Network? by TheLuWizz

This is a slightly technical explanation of lightening, Enjoy.

The Lightning Network is an off-chain solution for the Bitcoin blockchain. It is a "second layer solution." With such technologies, actions for a blockchain can be outsourced and handled in an external system. For scaling blockchains, such technologies are one of the best known and best solutions. While the Bitcoin blockchain can handle about 7 transactions per second, it is possible to handle up to 1,000,000 transactions per second within a channel with the Lightning Network. We explain what a channel is in this post. The transactions are transferable in almost real-time and cost almost nothing, in some cases even nothing at all.

Source

What Is the Lightning Network? The Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin Lightning Network by KRAKEN Exchange Education

-This is a nice introduction to Lightening Network designed for new cryptocurrency traders. It summarizes the main points in a combination of regular and crypto vocabulary. It's brief and it hits the important points to people new to cryptocurrency.

The Lightning Network (also referred to as Lightning, or LN) is a scalability solution built on top of Bitcoin that allows users to quickly send and receive BTC with virtually no fees. Lightning is considered to be an off-chain, Layer 2, solution, meaning that transfers are done via a new network of payment channels anchored in Bitcoin’s blockchain. As the world’s first and leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has become an important means of transacting value because, for the first time, any holder has the freedom to:
Hold bitcoin without unexpected supply inflation
Send and receive bitcoin without the need for an intermediary
Verify transactions using their own nodes. Source

However, many agree that Bitcoin still needs better functionality in order to become a global medium of exchange and a peer-to-peer cash system as originally laid out in the seminal whitepaper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. Currently, Bitcoin faces the following limitations:

Fees As block space is limited, mining fees can fluctuate wildly based on demand for transaction inclusion.
Transactions per second Bitcoin is only capable of approximately 7 transactions per second (TPS)
Network congestion Slow block times and heightened use of the network can result in delays in transaction confirmations. Source

The Bitcoin Lightning Network aims to solve these limitations by providing instant and inexpensive transactions while achieving a throughput of approximately 1 million transactions per second.
While Lightning can be used for any type of transfer, most find it useful for micropayments or smaller transfers that are typically uneconomical due to base layer fees.
Source

Hive blockchain and Lightning Network

Apolgies for the complexity of what is to follow.
But no review of Lightning Network pubished on Hive would be complete without citations about the bridge to lightening built by @brianoflondon
He writes a series of articles introducing the bridge and quite frankly his honesty about the strengths and weakness of Hive, Lightening and the bridge are refreshing and if your crypto-native or crypto-curious and willing to look up some words, you will get quite an education.
Just remember you get what you ask for, and if your ready to dive into these articles with fairly technical explanations jump right in, because while he does spare you some of the more technical explanations, he offers up others to help you realize your peril playing with this relatively new technology with many vulnerabilities.
But I can say you will feel a sense of joy and intelligence when you finish consuming these articles. Because the new and more complete understanding you will have not just of Bitcoin and the Ligghtening Network, but also of cryptocurrency.
You will earn a more complete understanding of how truly early we are in the evolution of cryptocurrency.
Most of you were not around during the birth, childhood and adolescence of the internet. You are now interfacing with a young to middle aged version of it. But your blockchain experience is th exact oppposite, not quite the infancy of blockchain, but surely toddlerhood.
Here are the @brianoflondon articles, as the French sa "Bon Appetiti"

Lightning and Hive: same same but different?

@brianoflondon/lightning-and-hive-same-same-but-different

Proposal: V4V.app and the start of a Decentralised Hive <-> Lightning Network Bridge for Podcasting 2.0

@brianoflondon/proposal-v4vapp-and-the-start-of-a-decentralised-hive-lightning-network-bridge-for-podcasting-20

Dear Amateur Lightning Node operators: you're not going to profit from routing - part 1

@brianoflondon/dear-amateur-lightning-node-operators-youre-not-going-to-profit-from-routing

Answering some Lightning Node Questions and replying to comments - part 3#### What is Bitcoin Lightening Network

@brianoflondon/answering-some-lightning-node-questions-and-replying-to-comments-part-3

What sort of Lightning Node do you need? - Part 4

@brianoflondon/what-sort-of-lightning-node-do-you-need-part-4

Hive is better than Lightning for receiving Value 4 Value in Podcasting 2.0

@brianoflondon/hive-is-better-than-lightning-for-receiving-value-4-value-in-podcasting-20

Data on the Bitcoin Lightning Network | BTC Balance, Number of Nodes, Channels and More | Feb 2024 written by @dalz

An article by @dalz which focuses on ...you guessed it statistics. Just the type of review we would expect from @dalz an analysis of number of nodes, transactions, etc... I found this very useful.

@dalz/data-on-the-bitcoin-lightning-network-or-btc-balance-number-of-nodes-channels-and-more-or-feb-2024

Jack Mallers' Presentation Was The Best Of Bitcoin 2022 Conference

written by @geekgirl

This is an article by @geekgirl . She gives high praise to a presentation by Jack Mailer at the BItcoin 2022 conference in which he explains the traditional payments system Visa Mastercards, etc..
Your probably wondering why I include this article here?
Because she gives a summary of his talk on payment systems and because Lightening Network is very much a peer to peer payment system created to facilitate economic activity. I feel that understanding the existing Traditional FInancial Payment System is key to understanding the strengths of Lightening Network.
One of the biggest discoveries in my cryptocurrency and blockchain journey was that I didn't know, how much I didn't know, about the tradiitional financial system. My desire to understand crypto fueled my desire to understand the traditional financial system. I think you appreciate the revolutionary aspects of the cryptocurrency system more after you get a deeper understanding of the traditional system. You will find the traditional payments system, credit cards in particular are amazingly vulnerable to exploits, and it's remarkable that more breachs don't occur.
This is a short and worthwhile read.
@geekgirl/jack-mallers-presentation-was-the-best-of-bitcoin-2022-conference

Lightning Network - How Layer 2 Payment Protocol Grown into Ecosystem by @esmeesmith

This post was enjoyable as it provided another prospective or point of view regarding other applications which have been built on lightening including social media applications like Hive or Inleo which reward content producers with Bitcoin. This is pretty radical and definately worth a read.

@esmeesmith/lightning-network-how-layer-2-payment-protocol-grown-into-ecosystem written by @esmeesmith

Unleashing the Potential of Bitcoin's Lightning Network: Challenges and Triumphs written by @mikezillo

Bitcoin's Lightning Network, designed to address the low throughput and high transaction fees of the Bitcoin blockchain, has been a transformative solution. Despite its potential, adoption has been slow, prompting a closer look at its capabilities and challenges.
While Bitcoin introduced decentralized, cross-border peer-to-peer transactions, its low throughput of seven transactions per second (TPS) led to historic transaction fees. In response, developers created the Lightning Network, a layer-2 scalability solution enabling off-chain transactions.

Creating a peer-to-peer payment channel between two parties, the Lightning Network allows near-instant, low-cost transactions. Functioning as a micro-ledger, users can make smaller payments for goods and services, enhancing Bitcoin's practicality.

@mikezillo/unleashing-the-potential-of-bitcoin

User Experiences with Hive Lightening Bridge

How I "mined" HIVE with NICEHASH using Lightning Wallet by brianoflondon

@chrislybear/how-i-mined-hive-with-nicehash-using-lightning-wallet-by-brianoflondon

Success!! First sending of Hive to a Salvadoran BTC « Chivo » wallet!

@ijatz/success-first-sending-of-hive-to-a-salvadoran-btc-chivo-wallet

Last Words

My apologies, at this point this post has become a bit long, and not really a Short Segment as I like to be known. But I think it is increasing useful to have archival type products on Hive, which make it easier to take deep dives into topics.
I hope you appreciate this one.

@shortsegments

About @shortsegments. Shortsegments is a writer on Inleo.io, who focused on cryptocurrency, the blockchain, non-fungible digital tokens or NFTs, and decentralized finance for over six years.

InLeo, a 4 year old social media application community on the Hive Blockchain, where you can write long articles called POSTS or short comments called THREADS about any topic. The Hive blockchain has zero transaction fees, 3 second transaction time, proof of stake consensus and a Community DAO with a 25 million dollar DAO treasury paying developers and builders to build applications for the community. Maybe your project should be here.
What is Hive? Hive is a blockchain based social media platform and Hive is a blockchain, which supports multiple social media platforms and pay for earn games and exercise to earn games. Learn more at this link.