What is the Bitcoin Lightening Network?

Definitions

Hive is the name of the Hive blockchain, hive is one of the cryptocurrency tokens on the Hive blockchain.

Hive-Engine is a side-chain of the blockchain Hive.

Hive-engine tokens refers to the cryptocurrency tokens on the Hive-Engine blockchain.

Bitcoin is the name of the blockchain.

Lightening Network is the name of the Bitcoin blockchain sidechain.

Satoshis is the plural form of the name Satoshi and refers to the smallest unit of bitcoin you can transact with.

Transaction Costs are the amount of Satoshi or decimel fraction of a bitcoin that you pay to transact on the Bitcoin blockchain, meaning to send bitcoin anywhere.

Transaction Time is the amount of time it takes for your sent bitcoin to arrive at it's destination address and be confirmed on the blockchain.

Explaining what Lightening Netwrok is..

My discussion of the Lightning Network will begin with a discussion of the Hive sidechain Hive-Engine.

The Hive Blockchain side-chain, called Hive-Engine, is connected to the Hive blockchain, so that settlement or the recoding of data, transactions and payment of Hive Token rewards occurs on the Hive Blockchain.

But certain other functionality like the creation of sub-communities with their own cryptocurrency tokens, and transactions regarding Hive Engine tokens, which are earned on side engine communities, occurs off the Hive blockchain, on the hive-engine sidechain, but settle on the Hive blockchain in a batch like fashion.

So generally speaking, the Hive Side Chain called Hive-Engine exists to perform or allow functionality not possible on the Hive Blockchain.

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) Speed and **(2) lower transaction speeds.

Instant Payments or Fast Transaction Speed

The Lightening Network is stated by multiple sources to be 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 *stated another way; 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.
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Last Words

The Lightening Network is like Hive's own side chain Hive-Engine, in that it can do things the main chain cannot do.

The Lightening Network allows fast instant payments in tiny amounts cheaply, so that actual goods and services can be paid for in Bitcoin.

This is the vision or dream of the person or persons known only as Satoshi Nakamoto, that Bitcoin would be a sound money for the people, free from the constraints and downsides of Fiat currency, and free from the control of governments.