The Bitcoin Lightning Network has marked another tremendous milestone. The total public capacity had surpassed more than 5,000 BTC for the first time in history, continuing along with the growing trend of 2022. This new milestone pushes further the capability and promise of the Bitcoin Lightning network. Just like always, there was a reason behind the big push.

Bitcoin Development Ramping Up

The continuous development of the bitcoin network has been a big part of why the digital asset remains so valuable today. Being the largest decentralized network in the space, there are always developers looking for new ways to leverage the offerings of the bitcoin network and push it further into the mainstream.

Lightning Labs is a development firm that continues to focus heavily on bitcoin development and was behind the new all-time high Lightning network capacity. The developer had expanded the channel capacity of River Financial and Loop, allowing for the network to be able to accommodate even more BTC. It also follows the introduction of the new Taro Protocol, whose code was posted for public dissection last week as Lightning Labs continue to expand the capabilities of the bitcoin network.

Lightning network reaches new milestone | Source: Arcane Research

The Bitcoin Lightning network is also becoming increasingly popular among BTC users. MicroStrategy, which holds a large investment position in BTC, made the news when it posted a job offer seeking a full-time lightning network engineer. Apparently, the firm is looking to build a Lightning network-based SaaS platform for e-commerce and enterprise use cases.

Taro Protocol, mentioned above, is working towards making it possible for developers to mint, send, and receive new tokens on the bitcoin blockchain. Take the Ethereum ERC tokens as an example. It will also expand the possibilities of NFTs on the bitcoin blockchain, as well as allow for the creation of stablecoins that are based on the bitcoin blockchain. 

BTC price settles above $20,000 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

The Lightning Network is also increasingly featured in crypto payments services due to its speed. El Salvador had adopted the Lightning network to make it easier to pay with BTC in the country, and digital payment provider Strike raised $80 million in September to expand its Lightning network-based payment solutions for merchants.

Layer 2 solutions like the Lightning Network are also expected to be more important to the bitcoin network going forward. Cardano founder Charles Hoskison recently revealed that he expects the majority of BTC will likely exist outside the bitcoin network in the next five years and be wrapped in these Layer 2 solutions.

Featured image from Coindesk, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com

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