Basic Understanding
This will give you a basic understanding of the lightning network, how it works, and where exactly it fits in the Bitcoin ecosystem
Use cases for the Lightning Network
The lightning network is very new and some interesting use cases have come to the surface. It is definitely not for everyone and you need some technical expertise to get under the hood. Simply using it however is now quite simple.
Hands On
Quiz
This is short multiple choice quiz to cement the concepts we covered.
Benefits of the Lightning Network
Speed
With Bitcoin Lightning, you do not have to wait for network confirmations and transactions are instant. As a result, the lightning network allows Bitcoin to disrupt payment systems like Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Skrill and the like.
Cost
Transactions take place within the Lightning Network Channels and off of the bitcoin blockchain. This means you will only pay a fraction as a fee if any at all. This is one of the major advantages of the Lightning Network.
Scaling
The Lightning Network is able to take the transactions per second rate of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to a mindblowing 1 million transactions per second.
Atomic Swaps
This will take some time, but cross chain atomic swaps are real and technically already possible. Consequently, with more mature markets we will see this area growing because it will be possible to eliminate the need for exchanges.
Securely anonymous
Most of the cryptocurrencies are pseudo-anonymous which means that you can still trace the transactions from one wallet to another. With the Lightning Network, most of the transactions happen off of the Bitcoin blockchain. As a result, all the micropayments made via Lightning channels will be pretty much untraceable.