Andreas Antonopoulos: Explain the difference between Bitcoin and Lightning Network

According to AMB Crypto reported on May 1st, Andreas Antonopoulos, author of "Betting Bitcoin" and one of the early evangelists of Bitcoin, has been plagued by the unique advantages of Bitcoin. In a recent video broadcast, Antonopoulos explains the difference between the current lightning network (LN) and the mainstream UTXO model.

(Source: flickr )

When Antonopoulos was asked whether the two networks were the same and whether they were running on the same blockchain model, the bitcoin evangelist said that the lightning network is not a blockchain, but rather a transaction between the parties. A smart contract network can be routed. He said:

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Typically, smart contracts on Lightning Networks perform Bitcoin or Litecoin transactions. An important issue that everyone needs to pay special attention to is that these transactions do not occur on the bitcoin blockchain. The lightning network is different from the bitcoin blockchain because it is the second layer of the bitcoin blockchain and other blockchains.

Antonopoulos believes that the advantage of Lightning Network is to provide a way to quickly trade and instantly confirm transactions. Therefore, based on the scalability provided by the lightning network, users can use the bottom layer of the Bitcoin blockchain to ensure security, while also sending a small amount of data on the lightning network very quickly.

Antonopoulos then explains how users can more easily participate in lightning networks in real life. He said:

In fact, users can participate in a variety of ways, not necessarily to create a complete full node. While the best way to participate in a lightning network is to create a node, for some users this can be technically difficult, they must be able to run a complete bitcoin node and then run a lightning network on it. Maybe in the future, there will be a lightweight blockchain that is easier to run, but its implementation will take some time.

Antonopoulos proposed an easy way to run a lightning network desktop wallet (such as Zap), which includes the functionality of a full node, but he also warned users that running such a desktop wallet would take up a lot of space on the user's hard drive; Between 150GB and 250GB.

Lightning network is doing awesome

When talking about the scalability of Bitcoin and the speed of transactions. Antonopoulos was asked whether he had recently tested the lightning network to check his user satisfaction. He replied that no such tests have been conducted since the user has been running the lightning network since January 2019. He added:

At present, the lightning network has nearly 6,000 nodes and the total capacity has reached 4 million US dollars. The Lightning Network has not been tested once, but I can assure you that since January last year, the Lightning Network has been running at an alarming rate.

Antonopoulos said:

What surprised many people is that the lightning network is trading at an extremely fast speed. The user simply needs to click on the phone screen to authenticate the transaction and complete the transaction. The transaction is so fast that Bitcoin has already been transferred to the recipient's wallet at the moment you turn around. Of course, users must understand that this is still a learning phase, and the current lightning network is preparing for future use cases.

Antonopoulos further talked about the trend of lightning torch relay and said it was a game designed to test user node and wallet settings. According to Antonopoulos, users can use lightning network torch relay to find out how to use nodes and wallets. He explained:

The entire process of lightning network torch relay is to test the strength and capacity of the lightning network itself. Suppose I sent you a bit of bitcoin through the Lightning Network. You didn't choose to leave it. Instead, you chose to add some more money (perhaps a few Cong) and then sent it to another trustworthy person. Of course, this process will become more and more difficult. Once it reaches a capacity of 4 million US dollars, it is almost impossible to continue, because the number of nodes that lightning network can accommodate such a large capacity is still very small.

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