Finally, the much-awaited lightning network for Bitcoin ecosystem is here. California based startup Lightning Labs has officially launched a beta version of its software.
Now with this technology, you will be able to leverage the LND technology to send Bitcoin and Litecoin to people without settling those annoying transactions on the blockchain.
This is the revolutionary update for the whole crypto environment considering the software is seeking to form a combined network that aims to make cryptocurrency transactions faster.
The good news for this particular technology is that; the whole Lightning network concept is backed by the leaders of the industry. According to Coindesk, “Lightning Labs has raised $2.5 million from nearly a dozen investors including Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Square Capital executive Jacqueline Reses, litecoin creator Charlie Leeand former PayPal COO David Sacks.”
Here is the statement from Lightning Engineering on the focal improvements they brought to the software:
A few of the highlights (more detail can be found in the release notes):
- Bitcoin Core support – previous versions of
lndrequired the use of btcd. Now, users who prefer to runlndwith bitcoind can do so using the instructions here.- New seed format, deterministic keys – a new and improved key creation and recovery system makes it much easier to backup
lndnodes and also makes recovery from data loss or corruption much simpler and more reliable. These improvements are also necessary for remote backup services, which will provide additional safety for Lightning users.- Vastly improved fault-tolerance – safety and security of user funds is of the utmost importance, and a great deal of effort has gone into making
lndsecure and stable in the event of power failures, network failures, hardware failures, or other unexpected or adversarial conditions. Ensuring that necessary recovery information is stored at all times and can be correctly reloaded upon restart and reconnection to the Lightning Network has been a major undertaking for 0.4-beta.- Smarter Path-Finding – introduces an improved management for constructing payment routes. The system, dubbed Mission Control, incorporates feedback from previous payment attempts, to update the view of the network in response to temporary bottlenecks or failures.
- Automated Contract Resolution – sweeping funds back into a user’s wallet is now handled by a concert of subsystems, that together decide how and when to spend all output types generated by an operating channel. Making this process automated, fault-tolerant, and intelligent has demanded an immense amount of effort, but critical to the safety of funds managed by
lnd. As an aside, you’ll be happy to know thatlndbatches transactions wherever possible 😉- Segwit Only –
lndhas removed support for now-obsolete P2PKH addresses, favoring both native Segwit and P2SH. As a result, all transactions, even regular on chain transactions, will benefit from lower fees and be healthier for the network.- Routing node metrics –
lndnow provides tools to track fees and payments at high-volume, which is of particular interest to those operating transaction routing nodes. Tools such as these can be used to optimize revenue, throughput and reliability. Let the gamification begin!
“Lightning is the most important protocol being built on bitcoin and Lightning Labs is the best developer of that protocol,” David Sacks told CoinDesk.
Source: Coindesk
