Lightning Network performs transactions between different blockchains

The Lightning Network, one of the technological milestones in the development of blockchains such as Bitcoin or Litecoin, has come into play in the last week. As part of a trial, the Lightning Network conducted a transaction between the two testnets of the Bitcoin and Litecoin blockchains.

One of the main promises of Segway bitcoin blockchain activation in August was the possibility of implementing the Lightning Network, which was hoping to be part of the solution to the growing scaling problem of the Bitcoin network. The big technological advancement that the Lightning Network should bring is that payments are made through many separate micropayment channels that make it possible to make bookings virtually past the blockchain. Instead, two users can make as many transactions as they like without informing all the participants in the blockchain about the cash flow. Only the final amount of their transaction will be noted afterwards in the blockchain transparent for all.

For months, however, the Bitcoin community had waited in vain for a final use of the Lightning Network and thus to complete the SegWit update. The extent to which the upcoming, now completely canceled SegWit2x activation played a role in the delay can not be established beyond doubt. However, just a week after rejecting SegWit2x, the Lightning Network has now found use in a cross-block transaction for the first time.

A so-called atomic swap was carried out, ie a direct exchange of one cryptocurrency into another. This took place off-chain, so that the transaction is not recorded on any of the two blockchains. Compared to on-chain solutions, this significantly reduces transaction costs and time.

The scene of this experiment were the two testnets of the blockchains of the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Litecoin. This process is noteworthy in that it was not Bitcoin, but its little sister Litecoin (often titled before Bitcoin-Bitcoin-Cash-Hard-Fork) who was the first to activate SegWit and thus also the Lightning Network implementation far ahead of the Bitcoin network. Thus, the update for Litecoin acted as an unofficial test run for the Bitcoin community.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has also gone that step, making the transaction now possible. Thus, in the future probably a greater interoperability between Bitcoin and Altcoins be created in the crypto currencies without major circumstances and especially without intermediaries such as crypto exchanges, exchanged and exchanged again. How revolutionary and above all mass-suitable this technological development really is will have to be seen in a long-term observation of the Lightning Network adaptation.