The beneath is a direct excerpt of Marty’s Bent Issue #1109: “A neural network is developing between Lightning Nodes.” Sign up for the newsletter here.
Above is a visualization of the present Lightning Community topography made up of ~16,000 Lightning Nodes with ~140,000 fee channels opened between them. I do not know if I am merely being duped by some visualization magic, however I can not assist however assume that we’re all witnessing the emergence of one thing huge. One thing that can have a profound impact on humanity that we won’t fairly comprehend but. The topography that’s rising on the Lightning Community appears to be mimicking many issues we discover in nature as very long time Bitcoin Core maintainer Wladimir van der Laan factors out beneath.
I can not fairly articulate it and I do not actually have any concrete metrics to spotlight, however this appears to be the way in which wherein we’d need the community topography to emerge; in a grassroots means that mimics the way in which complicated methods of all completely different sizes are inclined to emerge in nature. Issues like rivers, mycelium, neural pathways, and the cosmos. Once more, there’s nothing actually concrete I can level to to clarify what I imagine is going on. It is extra of an intuitive feeling that makes me imagine we’re on the precise path.
Pulling on that thread, I even have a sense we’re on the precipice of an inflection level in the case of Lightning Community adoption and innovation. Clearly there was a lot progress made and the community is being stress examined with service provider adoption in El Salvador, however it feels as if we’re approaching a second the place increasingly more builders are going to start coming off the sidelines to carry new merchandise to market that leverage Lightning. I could possibly be unsuitable, it is merely a sense I’ve and my emotions could also be a bit biased. We will see.
There’s nonetheless a lot work to be carried out with reference to bettering the safety and privateness of the community for its customers. I imagine these areas will see vital enchancment as effectively over the course of the following two to 3 years.
