Bitcoin Lightning Network Sees 1,212% Growth in Routed Transactions in Two Years, According to BTC Tech Company

The Lightning Network has seen massive transaction growth in the past two years despite Bitcoin’s (BTC) bearish price action, according to a BTC technology company.

River, a company that offers Bitcoin brokerage and custody services, looked at data from the operators of nodes comprising 52% of the public capacity on the Lightning Network, a layer-2 solution for BTC that aims to address scalability issues.

River estimates a lower bound of 6.6 million routed Lightning transactions this August, noting that the upper bound estimate could be several times that number but isn’t quantifiable because there wasn’t data available for transactions between only two participants or private transactions. Routed transactions involve more than two nodes.

Explains the firm,

“This represents a 1,212% increase since the 503,000 Lightning payments estimate for August 2021 by K33 (formerly Arcane Research). This growth was despite a 44% Bitcoin price drop and a 45% decrease in search interest.  It is the equivalent of 2.5 transactions per second (TPS), compared to Bitcoin’s on-chain average of 4.4 TPS and K33’s August 2021 benchmark of 0.2 TPS.”

Gaming, social media tipping and streaming are behind 27% of the network’s transaction growth, according to River.

The firm also notes that the Lightning Network is processing at least 47% of Bitcoin’s on-chain transactions on a daily basis.

At time of writing, Bitcoin is trading for $26,892.

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