After three years of working on the problem, the first version of the bitcoin lightning network has come out recently. This network hopes to solve the problem bitcoin currently has with speed and cost. Right now bitcoin transaction are not very fast, because only a small number can be done per block. Anyone who has sent bitcoins also knows that the cost has become high.
The Lightning Network hopes to change that by making bitcoin transaction very fast and cheap. This has the potential of really bringing bitcoin into the mainstream. Given that the number of bitcoins is still capped at 21,000,000 , then wider adoption will increase demand and the price of bitcoin should increase.
This is good news for investors, but what's really good about this is that for those who simply want to use bitcoin for buying things, this promises to make it efficient and cheap.
