What Is The Lightning Network ?

 What is the Lightning Network? Simply put, the Lightning Network was proposed as a solution to making Bitcoin scale to global capacity while keeping it decentralized and trustless. It’s a second-layer solution on top of the Bitcoin network, secured by the Bitcoin Blockchain. It is open source and anyone can improve, and contribute to the code. Some of the best software engineers in the world have done just that, and have been testing it extensively and are now ready to take the technology to the next level. 

Lightning facts:

• Lightning is capable of millions of T.P.S. while still having the benefits of the Bitcoin blockchain’s security.
• A single lightning transaction will cost fractions of a penny. This will enable micro-payments without an intermediary.
• There is no better implementation out there that can scale Bitcoin to 1000-times its current capacity and still maintain decentralization with near instant transactions at near zero cost.
• Security is enforced by blockchain smart-contracts without creating a on-blockchain transaction for individual payments. Payment speed measured in milliseconds to seconds.
• Lightning network decentralized. 
• Lighting payments more private than payments on the Bitcoin blockchain because network participants will not know the sender and recipient.
• Lighting network will accommodate “dust” transactions and possibly, sub-satoshi transactions.
• The number of payments per second that can be routed over the lightning network has no practical upper boundaries. Global commerce transaction capacity is very possible. We are talking about billions of transactions on a daily basis.
• Lightning Network enables Unicast Transactions in Bitcoin. Lightning is Bitcoin’s TCP/IP stack.
• Cross chain atomic swaps, so long as the chains can support the same cryptographic hash function, it is possible to make transactions across different blockchains with no intermediary.

Testing, Development, Implementation:

• There are three implementations of Lightning, eclair, c-lightning, and lnd, all open-source, and all inter operable. 
• On January 21st, 2018, the first physical item, a VPN  router,  was purchased on the Lightning network. 
• So when will the lightning network go live? It's already live and organically growing. The Bitcoin blockchain will scale alongside Lightning, providing an immutable, trustless, secure, and censorship resistant foundation.

Thanks for reading!