- River Financial Service company reported impressive growth in Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions.
- Lightning Network is showing enormous 4-digit growth.
River Financial reported magnificent growth in August 2021. The routed transactions were 503,115 which surged to 6,599,553 in August 2023 which is a near vertical growth of 1,212%. ‘Routed transactions’ are the transactions that involve more than 2 nodes which means the preceded value may be higher. This is highlighted by Sam Wouter who is a research analyst for River.
There are only 5,000 Bitcoins locked in the network. He added that Lightning had accomplished so much. The Lightning Network is the second layer of Bitcoin (BTC) that uses the micropayment channels to increase the blockchain capability and handle the transaction more efficiently and cheaply.
“LN” Lightning Network is Showing Remarkable Growth
Per the report, Google searches for Bitcoin dropped by 45 percent along with the price dropping by 44%. Sam Wouters says that having 4-digit growth is significant.
Wouters in X (formerly Twitter) post on October 10, said “Nobody is using lightning should now be a dead meme.”
Along with the search boosting on Google trend, the volume also surged. In August 2021 the volume was $12.1 Million and 303 BTC and now the price is $78.8 Million and 2,950 Bitcoin which is a 546% and 874% increase.
Gaming is the sector that wholly solely surged the network’s growth rate with hundreds and thousands of monthly active users. The sector has an outsized impact on the network’s growth rate.
Gaming and streaming have led to 25% of network activity happening between 1-10 sats and the other 25% occurs in 10-1,000 sats related to tipping and anything from 10,000 up seems to be for commerce, node rebalancing, and remittance.
The pseudonymous creator of a decentralized social media network, Nostr Fiatjaf says that the number shows natural growth even though the network is still very small.
He also highlighted the reasons responsible for network growth and success. The first reason is the incredible amount of zaps and the second is custodial wallets. The non-custodial solutions or wallets that offer freeness, and independence to users have been slow to market in Lightning Network. This has forced people to turn to other options such as Wallet of Satoshi, which is a centralized wallet that controls the private keys.
Summary
River, the Bitcoin exchange report shows that increased Lightning usage will play a significant role in Bitcoin becoming a preferred medium of exchange. The increase in the routed transactions, volume, and active users due to gaming, social media tipping, and streaming sectors shows its enhanced advancement and use.