Bitcoin processing times have speeded up recently

[TheBigShort]

Both items are indicators that the established banking industry recognise that cryptocurrency is here to stay.

I agree. How it manifests itself will ultimately be decided by market forces. I think its fair to say that Bitcoin has stolen a march in that regard.
Speaking of which, I did some small bitcoin transactions from Coinbase recently and it was noticeable that the waiting times and network fees had fallen by a considerable amount from the last time I did any transactions. Would you know the reason for this? Is this Lightening Network coming on stream?

 

[tecate]

Speaking of which, I did some small bitcoin transactions from Coinbase recently and it was noticeable that the waiting times and network fees had fallen by a considerable amount from the last time I did any transactions. Would you know the reason for this? Is this Lightening Network coming on stream?

No, that's not Lightning Network. Coinbase finally implemented Segwit last week - accounting for the improved Tx times/costs. Segwit adoption has now reached 30% ...meaning that there is still considerable scope for further improvement.


You will notice it immediately once Lightening Network is implemented as transactions will be both instantaneous and at minimal cost.

 

[Leo]

Is this Lightening Network coming on stream?

You need to set up and fund a payment channel in order to use the Lightning Network, as Lightning transactions all happen off the blockchain. I believe it's still in an alpha phase and they're not encouraging too much real traffic on it yet, there's currently just over $40k available over 1479 [broken link removed].

 

[tecate]

You need to set up and fund a payment channel in order to use the Lightning Network, as Lightning transactions all happen off the blockchain. I believe it's still in an alpha phase and they're not encouraging too much real traffic on it yet, there's currently just over $40k available over 1479 [broken link removed].

You're quite right - LN is a Layer 2 application. The dev's have asked people not to transact on the Network right now - only to do so on the testnet. They are still debugging.

 

[Firefly]

You will notice it immediately once Lightening Network is implemented as transactions will be both instantaneous and at minimal cost.

Any idea what the energy requirements / usage will be when Lightening Network is introduced versus the status quo?

 

[tecate]

Any idea what the energy requirements / usage will be when Lightening Network is introduced versus the status quo?

I'm open to correction on this but I would imagine that given that there won't be a need for additional hash power for LN, that it's use as another Layer over the existing network should lower the energy requirement proportional to the number of transactions executed. i.e. the existing energy requirement will not decrease but the number of transactions completed will increase.

 

[Leo]

i.e. the existing energy requirement will not decrease but the number of transactions completed will increase.

Yeah, bitcoin's current usage is artificially high due to the increased complexity designed in to restrict the rate of discovery of new bitcoin. LN has no such discovery/reward mechanism.