04 Jan 2022
New Report: The State of Lightning - Exploding activity on Lightning in September
Today, we’ll publish a massive in-depth report on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, containing data on usage never before disclosed to the public. Stay tuned!
Ever been curious about the actual usage of the Lightning Network or wanted to learn more about how Lightning works? Then we got a treat for you! We have a massive report coming up shortly, illustrating the usage of the Lightning Network, disclosing numbers on payment volumes, wallet usage, and more. We have previously illustrated the massive growth in the Lightning Network’s capacity this year. From January until August, the public BTC capacity in Lightning saw an average monthly growth of 10%. This growth rate accelerated further in September, growing by 26% during the legal tender frenzy. However, while capacity is an interesting metric, showing the funds users are committing to Lightning, it doesn’t really reflect the activity. Payment volumes, however, reflect the actual usage of Lightning. We’ve received data from many large and important entities involved with Lightning, allowing us to make a strong estimate covering the payment volumes of Lightning. The payment volumes in Lightning saw a very sharp growth in September, increasing by 94% from the August levels. In general, the payment volumes on Lightning are still very low and sat at $8.17 million in September, up from $4.2 million in August. These volume levels reflect actual usage of merchant solutions, wallets, and other services. Routing payments are not included in our estimates. This recent growth of Lightning and all the developing trends of the network suggest that the usage of the network is currently in a phase of accelerated intensity.