Posted August 2022. Some key things I caught from it:
  • the $40B global remittance market averages 6.4% per cross-border transaction
  • Lightning saw 400% YoY increase in Q1 22, at an estimated $20-$30M in monthly payments (public capacity)
  • Number of Bitcoins on the network is at an ATH - 4500BTC
  • this cool image
  • LND has 70% of node market share as of 2020
  • 26 exchanges support Lightning (Kraken, Bitfinex, Bitstamp) with Robinhood announcing an integration and Paxful too
  • David Markus (previous head of Facebook's Libra/Diem project) founded and raised a Series A for a new Lightning infra company Lightspark
  • Lightning Labs raised $70M for a series B; OpenNode raised a series A
  • With just $100M locked in, it pales in comparison with Ethereum's billion dollar L2s. But Coinbase admits that lightning activity is more indicative of real world utility when compared to the speculative activity driving growth on these smart contract platforms
  • Hurdles: lack of developer tooling, demand for payment use cases, regulation; Lightning is still cumbersome for new users and merchants
I think Lightning is a disrupter in more ways than just payments. Obviously, payments are huge however here are some of my thoughts on subjects https://medium.com/coinmonks/nfts-are-nifty-but-a-bitcoin-nft-is-a-game-changer-8dd62eb1b4d
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