Electrum has officially announced that it will be supporting Lightning Network in its next release. It previously said as much but had not yet delivered a hard date.
The Lightning Network is a “second-layer” scaling solution which works as an alternative to increasing the block size.
Lightning Network Growing Up
Instead of including more transactions in each block, an additional layer of blockchain processing batch processes transactions up to a certain size.
That size is based on the amount of Bitcoin that the “Lightning channel” operator has staked to guarantee transactions. The method is similar to the way that banks guarantee checks.
The alternative method of Bitcoin scaling is increasing the block size (which will still ultimately require a second layer), and that has been experimented with in Bitcoin Cash.
Electrum is by far one of the most popular Bitcoin wallets for the desktop.
The next release of Electrum will support Lightning payments. Our lightning node implementation has been merged into Electrum's master branch.
— Electrum (@ElectrumWallet) October 14, 2019
Electrum works by allowing many clients to connect to a single Electrum server, which operates a full Bitcoin node. The clients don’t require a full node, making the software lightweight for regular users. Server operators can ask for donations.
Fraudulent versions of the software have been distributed, with little success, in the past. Electrum’s code is not the only open source victim of such antics.
The episodes demonstrate why GPG signatures are important. This is especially true in software that involves money, such as cryptocurrency, which involves billions.
Electrum Server + Lightning = Mass Lightning Network Adoption?
Electrum will reportedly be using their own Python-based implementation of Lightning.
Yes.
— Electrum (@ElectrumWallet) October 14, 2019
The importance of the news for Lightning Network cannot be understated. To date, while live, the network has seen limited adoption, with a few major announcements.
The network has over 10,000 nodes and more than 35,000 channels, according to 1ML, a site that tracks Lightning statistics.
According to 1ML.com, Lightning Network now has over 10,000 nodes and over 35,000 channels, which will increase with the addition of the Electrum Server network. Source: 1ML.com
Adding Electrum network’s will reportedly not do much to expand this network, but it may provide a whole new level of functionality for developers.
Electrum, Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency as a whole suffer from a lack of decentralization in large part to an investor-heavy market.
Ironically, investors are probably less likely than developers and geeks, who fomented the movement in its early days, to run nodes and other software that helps strengthen the network.
