Lightning Network technology will introduce a completely new era for cryptocurrency in general. Most people associate this technology with Bitcoin, although Litecoin will have its own version of the Lightning Network as well. As it turns out, Decred’s developers have been working on a similar solution. In fact, any cryptocurrency with SegWit activated on the mainnet can benefit from this technology.
Decred’s Lightning Network is Coming Soon
There have been multiple discussions regarding the Lightning Network over the past year. In virtually every case, these discussions have pertained to Bitcoin’s implementation of LN in the future. In order to bring this technology to Bitcoin users, we first needed Segregated Witness to properly activate. That has been a monumental task, as most people are well aware. However, things are progressing nicely in this regard, even though there remains a lot of work to be done in the coming months.
Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency to have activated Segregated Witness over the past few months, though. In fact, the world’s leading cryptocurrency was pretty late to the party in that regard. Litecoin activated SegWit well ahead of Bitcoin, which allowed the former’s developers to create their own version of the Lightning Network. Dubbed aptly the Litening Network, it will allow for micropayments with Litecoin in the near future. It will be interesting to see how different cryptocurrencies “compete” in this regard over the next few years.
It now turns out there is a Lightning Network in development by Decred as well. Even though most people may have ignored this altcoin over the past few months, the currency is quickly making a name for itself. That’s not only because it can be merge-mined with popular altcoins, but also due to its own activation of Segregated Witness. Moreover, Decred’s developers have been working together with the Litecoin team on cross-chain atomic swaps. It is this latter development which will open up a lot of new and exciting doors in the future.
According to a recent Reddit thread, the Decred Lightning Network should be coming to market at the end of this month. That is rather ambitious, although not impossible to achieve by any means. Some of the features were developed on the Decred network with the latest Thunderstruck update, which involved some changes to the consensus mechanism. More specifically, a new vote ID was introduced, which can be set up through the main wallet or a stake pool’s website accordingly.
It is evident that Lightning Network technology is of great importance to the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. Not only will it introduce micropayments for popular currencies, but it will also show the world that instant payments with cryptocurrency are a very real thing. Up until now, even the most popular cryptocurrencies suffer from confirmation delays now and then. Those currencies with much faster block times haven’t succeeded in gaining major traction yet. More competition in the crypto world can only be seen as a good thing, as Bitcoin isn’t perfect by any means.
It will be interesting to see how all these Lightning Networks perform. The developments themselves are pretty interesting to keep an eye on. Once we have multiple LN-capable currencies out there, interoperability becomes the next logical step. The future is looking very bright for cryptocurrencies, especially once political shenanigans are put aside.
