The Lightning Network, an ever-growing crypto payment protocol, celebrated its this week by trumpeting its accomplishments on Twitter. On Friday, Lightning Labs wrote, “If we can do all this in one year, just give us a few more.” However, a account quickly crashed the party by implying that Lightning has failed to deliver on its promises:
: “Just give us a few more years.”
Prior to this, bitcoin sarcastically the difficulty of setting up a Lightning node. Now, it seems that Lightning Labs has had enough—as of Friday, the group has blocked bitcoin on Twitter. bitcoin, for its part, has responded by calling Lightning out on its sensitivity:
Uh-oh! Looks like I upset Lightning Labs with my last tweet.
Not an Official Conflict
Lightning is still being supported by large portions of the bitcoin community. The bitcoin account on Twitter doesn’t officially represent bitcoin, and nobody knows who actually operates it. bitcoin.com is an obvious candidate since its views align with those of the Twitter account, but the site has asserted that it the account.
Still, bitcoin.com has been of Lightning in the past, and the site’s owner, Roger Ver, has done the same. Ver himself has even criticized the Lightning Network for demanding more time to produce results—in , Ver reiterates complaints that another critic has made:
ETA:
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver)
Needless to say, hostility toward the Lightning Network is not isolated to one account. Much of the conflict is driven by the fact that bitcoin Cash is competing with Lightning. have the goal of providing faster and cheaper crypto transactions, and bitcoin Cash is favored by Ver, bitcoin.com, and bitcoin on Twitter.
Lightning Makes Progress
Despite this ongoing conflict, the Lightning Network has plenty of supporters and active users in the bitcoin community. As of mid-March, Lightning nearly 40,000 bitcoin payment channels and just under 7500 nodes. Furthermore, the community-run “Lightning Torch” campaign has been attracting the attention of the general public.
Some critics do have a point, though. Lightning is plagued by the fact that its node software is notoriously difficult to set up. Fortunately, streamlined solutions have emerged. and are now offering simplified Lightning tools to users and merchants. Additionally, Casa’s is gaining attention after an from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Nevertheless, the fact that Lightning has blocked a bitcoin-related account is not a good look—the coin is, after all, driving the network’s growth. In the meantime, plenty of praise for Lightning can be found elsewhere. In particular, the has vocally supported Lightning, and the two will probably stick together through thick and thin.
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Published at Sun, 17 Mar 2019 23:27:12 +0000
