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- The Bitcoin Lightning Network developer, Lightning Labs, has made its first release of 2020 with Lnd v0.9-beta.
- The Lightning Network is a second layer peer-to-peer protocol on top of the Bitcoin blockchain allowing for faster transactions amongst nodes.
- A mobile software development kit (SDK) called “Falafel” has also been released to make porting Lnd builds to mobile wallets easier.
The Bitcoin Lightning Network developer, Lightning Labs, has made its first release of 2020 with Lnd v0.9-beta. The beta update includes multiple new features, including support for multi-path and spontaneous keysend payments, a macaroon bakery for fine-grained permissions, liquidity management using circular payments, a mobile SDK, and bug fixes.
The Lightning Network is a second layer peer-to-peer protocol on top of the Bitcoin blockchain allowing for faster transactions amongst nodes and potentially solves the Bitcoin scalability problem.
It creates bidirectional channels for the transfer of funds between nodes without relaying the transfer data to the blockchain until the channel closed. This makes for quicker transaction times and reduces network congestion making the Bitcoin network much more flexible and efficient.
The latest update by Lightning Labs builds new support for multi-path payments, which allow for transactions to be split into multiple channels by a sender and then be re-attached back by the receiver allowing for better routing of the Bitcoin around liquidity bottlenecks in the network.
This also makes sending larger payments easier when splitting into multiple smaller payments and still helps maintain a simple user experience as the payee and payer see the transaction from various channels as one.
The update also introduces a new feature called “Keysend” that allows for automatic payments that don’t require a receiver to be involved in the amount before sending.
In which the payer doesn’t have to generate an invoice for the transaction. Lnd v0.9-beta also improves on the extensibility and flexibility of the network with more technical advancements.
Liquidity management has also introduced, now allowing users to send funds within their channels with the addition of “circular payments” and the infrastructure to support the same. A new “channel fitness” subsystem has also developed to improve the routing of funds through channels.
A mobile software development kit (SDK) called “Falafel” has also been released to make porting Lnd builds to mobile wallets easier. New developer features have also introduced that focus on making working with Lnd more friendly.
Multiple compatibility changes have also made in the latest beta that hopes to make developing easier on other implementations of the Lightning network. As usual, bug fixes were also continued, primarily fixing a core vulnerability in the Sphinx protocol.
Over the past decade, the Lightning Network went from being a small scale project to being very widely known, attracting a lot of mainstream media to how it hoped to solve one of Bitcoin’s most plaguing scalability problems.
The project, although in its infancy still, has a long way to go and will hopefully make even more significant strides in making Bitcoin a more comfortable to use and accessible network.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
