Altcoin News: The New Application for the Lightning Network Will Simplify the Acceptance of Payments

April 5, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

This week a new application was launched, which is designed to solve the problem of the “incoming bandwidth” Lightning Network (LN) in the Bitcoin blockchain.

One of the problems facing the payment network, which is still under development, is the need to have sufficient funds at the opposite end of the Lightning channel. Users need to take several steps before they can get paid, which makes it much more difficult for merchants who want to receive funds through the network. Some participants in the Lightning Torch global experiment also encountered this difficulty.

The new Lightning Power Users application, developed by Pierre Rochard, will join other services that are aimed at solving the problem of limiting incoming network bandwidth. These services include Thor from Bitrefill and the recently released Lightning Loop solution from Lightning Labs.

Lightning Power Users will use a slightly different approach than Thor, with a shorter limit on how long the service will keep the channel open if it is not used. According to Roshar, this application is designed for users who may want to accept a payment “as quickly as possible” and want to use a channel with a short lifespan for a lower fee.

Roshar launched this service due to the concern that one of the existing applications could grow to enormous dimensions and make Bitcoin more centralized. He notes:

“I think what I want to see is a large variety of ways to do this. If we rely on just LNBIG or other services, then bitcoin’s not as decentralized. So, that’s my goal. To provide a reliable service.

At first, according to Roshar, users sent applications through the Google form, and he used this data to manually configure the channel, but the new service automated the process. Thus, some users tried Lightning Power Users during testing prior to launch. Some of them claim that they were satisfied with the service and that the fee for its use is “reasonable”. Roshar added:

“It’s one of the more legitimate criticisms of lightning. We’ll see where it goes. there’s healthy debate among developerss about how to solve this issue.”

In addition, Roshar believes that in the long run, developers can find a way to completely eliminate the problem of incoming network bandwidth. One approach may include iterating the Lightning autopilot function or using new computer technologies such as machine learning. Roshard argues that new Lightning Network features that have recently been added to specifications that are planned for implementation in all LN implementations can also help with problem resolution.

Note that more and more interesting features and modifications that can help a wider implementation of Lightning appear recently. Recently, a Bitcoin developer has created a plugin to support the Lightning Network in crypto ATMs.

Author: Marko Vidrih