Intro

Bitcoin - the first of its kind - toiled the last few weeks with a full mempool and ridiculous high fees. Today, finally, the beta of the long-awaited lightning network was released, which should solve all these scalability problems from bitcoin. Pending transactions? Not anymore, instead you will get instant transactions with no fee at all.

Sounds all fine but this is only half the truth. It's true, you will get instant transactions without any fee but you have prepare a few things. First of all you need a dedicated wallet which can open channels. Basically you connect to a sidechain node and deposit bitcoin on the lightning network. After you opened the channel you need an invoice to transfer your bitcoin.

It's just a short paragraph to describe the prerequisites but the setup took a while.

Testing

First of all I downloaded the lighning-app from their github repository (Link). The first impression of the wallet was moderate, it has a basic and old-fashioned design. Probably normal for new wallets.

After I started the wallet, I had to wait until the sync was finished. I took the opportunity to sent some bitcoin to the new wallet in the meantime.

Everything was ready. The wallet was fully synced and funded and I was excited to start the first tests. I searched for a lightning node which was a nerve-racking experience. The most of them were down, not reachable or refused the connection. After a while I fortunately found one and was able to connect.

I was still on the testnet, so I headed to a virtual coffee site where you can get testnet invoices. I ordered one coffee and checked out. Immediately after I was redirected on a site with a qr code.

I copied the string from the site and pasted it into the lightning-app. It automatically showed what I ordered along with a 'send payment' button.

I sent the payment and almost instantly the invoice changed. It was surprisingly fast! This could really help bitcoin to break into the mass market. Payments would be much more comfortable.

Despite the initial problems with the channel, everything worked very well. But don't forget the lightning network is still in it's beta, so use it with caution.

What is my opinion about the lightning network?

Bitcoin is a legacy system and the lightning network looks like a desperate attempt to keep it alive. I really like bitcoin but it's an old and outdated blockchain. If there weren't the scalability problems bitcoin would already dominate the mass market, but unfortunately they couldn't find a way to speed it up.

In my opinion the lightning network is too bloated. The most people who use bitcoin doesn't even know what a blockchain is and it could be to complicate for them to use the lightning network. The main problem is before they can use the lightning network they have to deposit their coins there. But we will see. Newer wallets will also provide a better usability.

However I do genuinely hope that other coins will prevail on the market. There are many interesting and promising projects. My current favorite, DeepOnion, provides nearly instant transactions (normally just a few seconds until you receive your input) and will also provide privacy features. Not everyone need to know how much coins I own and where I spend them.