Bitcoin is the very first cryptocurrency. As a result, it is known as the "mother of all cryptocurrencies." However, even though Bitcoin has transformed the world of finance since its inception, it has yet to be fully adopted as a regular customer legal tender for daily activities due to its network congestion and transaction costs. As a result, Bitcoin has a disadvantage in terms of slow transaction speed and high transaction fees, which can be a frustrating experience when waiting for transactions to be confirmed for long periods.
Bitcoin came to disrupt the global conventional finance system, which was centralized and under authority. For example, governments, through central banks, can deny you access to your assets. As a result, everyone was at the mercy of centralized systems. However, Bitcoin solves the problem of control by allowing individuals to be in charge of their finances through its decentralized functionality.
As Bitcoin's adoption grew exponentially, the network became overburdened, causing congestion within the blockchain. In addition, as each user attempted to have their transaction confirmed first, the network began executing users with the highest fee, resulting in a high transaction fee on the blockchain. As a result, the Bitcoin network's transaction per second (TPS) rate is relatively low for a technology aimed at mass adoption.
Imagine you are at your favorite store doing some groceries shopping, and you choose to make a payment with bitcoin. On getting to the cashier, a long queue of customers is waiting to confirm their transaction. Eventually, it was your turn after waiting for a long time. Upon paying on the network, you discovered the transaction fee was higher than the total cost of your item itself. This will be frustrating!
However, how do you complete a bitcoin transaction without taking forever? How do you use Bitcoin to instantly pay for goods without having to pay exorbitant transaction fees? How do you drastically increase the transaction speed while paying lesser transaction fees?
Fortunately, there's a solution to this dilemma of micropayment with Bitcoin. As a result, the need to scale up Bitcoin's transaction capability became increasingly important, especially for micropayment, and this need saw the emergence of the Lightning Network.
The Lightning Network
The Lightning Network is a second layer added to the Bitcoin blockchain that permits off-chain transactions. Its goal is to address the Bitcoin blockchain's limited throughput capacity and significantly reduce transaction fees for micropayments.
By using Lightning Network, you can complete transactions without having to interact with the Bitcoin network directly. Instead of confirming transactions on the blockchain, the lightning network executes it off-chain and instantly completes payment at little to no cost.
So, when you do your transaction through the lightning network, you are dealing directly with the other party with fragments of bitcoin to enable an instant peer-to-peer trade without settling it on the blockchain, which costs little or no fee to the two of you involved. Therefore, Bitcoin transactions are completed instantly using the lightning network since they do not rely on blockchain confirmations. As a result, you can use bitcoin at retail point-of-sale terminals, micro-payment transactions, and anywhere else instant payments are required.
How Do You Use The Lightning Network?
Considering the earlier store example, a smart contract channel will be opened for payment when you get to the cashier to make payment through the lightning network. The payment channel is immediately opened and logged on the Bitcoin blockchain, while other transactions are logged on the Lightning Network. Therefore, instead of waiting a long time for the store to confirm and validate your payments, you could make as many payments as possible to them and receive them immediately.
However, to use the lightning network, you need to lock up your bitcoin in a multi-signature wallet since it requires both parties to release the fund. Then, as with the case of the store, you sign in to the multisig and agree to ensure payment is received. Each time you purchase from the store, a new balance sheet is generated, which you sign using your public key to reflect the amount in your own and the store's wallets. If you no longer want to buy from the store, you can close the channel, and the resulting balance sheet is permanently recorded on the blockchain.
So, How Do You Connect To a Lightning Network?
You can access the Lightning Network by running a lightning node or utilizing a Lightning wallet. However, to use the Lightning Network, you must first acquire a compatible wallet.
Cwallet is the best Wallet compatible with the lightning network that will enable you to instantly complete your micropayment transaction without any charges!
Cwallet Supports Lightning Network
Using the Cwallet, you can instantly complete your bitcoin transaction via the lightning network. To use the lightning network on Cwallet, you do not need to lock up your funds, and your micropayment transactions are executed at high speed, high volume, and at no cost.
Once you're on the Cwallet page, choose Satoshi (SATS) from the list, and you can either send or receive, depending on what you need to do. So, let's assume you want to receive SATS.
First, enter the amount for the transaction and confirm to display the deposit address. Then, you can either scan the displayed QR Code or copy the address to make a deposit.
A message with the deposit's status will appear on this page when the deposit is successful.
Voila! You have instantly completed the transaction using the lightning network with your Cwallet. You can be viewed Token deposits in the Transaction Record or Balance.
Cwallet is a multi-functional interactive cryptocurrency wallet. The only wallet you'll ever need for almost all of your crypto needs.
What's more?
Cwallet does not charge any deposits, withdrawals, and token swap fees. Therefore, using Cwallet is absolutely FREE!
So, what are you waiting for?
Download Cwallet NOW.
