What is the Lit Lightning Network?

A lot of cryptocurrency enthusiasts are keeping a close eye on the Lightning Network. Over in the Litecoin world, they prefer to view it as the Litening Network, albeit they are one and the same technology. A new form of Lightning Network implementation has come to surface, known as Lit. It offers some advantages and shares similarities with LN as we know it.

An Overview of the Lit Implementation

Most people are well aware as to why the Lightning Network was designed in the first place. Developers felt this project could address scalability issues affecting some of the world’s most prominent cryptocurrencies. With a strong focus on Bitcoin – and more recently, Litecoin – it has become clear the Lightning Network deserves a lot of attention.

Moreover, the Lightning Network introduces a lightning channel to speed up transactions. More interestingly, there can be different channels built on top of the Lightning network which don’t all reside on the same blockchain. They can be found on any chain as long as they support similar functionality. Until now, there was no convenient way to test LN capabilities across different blockchains, though.

This is where the Lit implementation comes into the picture. The software is designed to simultaneously connect to multiple networks and create independent channels for them. In the long run, solutions like these may lead to exchange cryptocurrencies without relying on centralized exchanges. That would be quite a significant feat to achieve, even though it will take a while until it happens.

What makes Lit different from other Lightning Network implementations is how it runs its own wallet software. Moreover, this solution is easier to run, as one does not need to set up a full LN node to do so. Although running a full node is always the safer option, it is a resource cost not everyone can afford right now. Additionally, not all use cases warrant the use of a full node either. It is good to have alternatives at all times, that much is evident.

As of right now, Lit can access multiple blockchains at once. This includes Bitcoin’s testnet3 and Litecoin’s testnet4. It is expected a lot of other networks will be supported as more altcoins successfully activate SegWit and work towards implementing the Lightning Network. It is also worth mentioning the project uses the BIP173 address format, ensuring wallets support both Segwit and non-Segwit addresses alike.

Do keep in mind the Lit source code is still under development, and everyone can take a closer look at it on GitHub. The team also released binaries and a walk-through to make things more comprehensive. The Lightning network is an extremely exciting piece of technology that will have a big impact on the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.

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