BITCOIN SEASON 2: Is Bitcoin's Lightning Network A Success?
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s 10 years since the invention of the Lightning Network! Is it a success or failure?
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Matt Kimmell joins us to evaluate the Lightning Network's decade long journey. We break down Lightning using simple analogies (bar tabs and abacuses!), trace its historical development through Bitcoin's scaling debates, and try to assess its successes and disappointments. While Lightning functions technically and has achieved notable adoption milestones, the we discuss why user experience remains challenging and if we can address persistent issues like channel liquidity management and offline reception problems.
Notes
- Lightning whitepaper published in 2015 (decade ago)
- Three softforks enabled Lightning functionality
- Trump used Lightning for burger purchase on camera
- Many Lightning wallet providers have shut down
- Channel liquidity management remains a major UX issue
- Binance and major exchanges now support Lightning
Check out our Bitcoin scaling conference! Visit opnext.dev to learn more.
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
02:17 What is the Lightning Network?
08:50 History of Lightning
21:34 Web3
26:35 Arch Network
27:07 New use cases
30:05 Lightning successes
37:49 Lightning failures
41:30 OP_NEXT
48:06 UX challenges
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're talking the Lightning Network today on Bitcoin Season 2. Is it a failure? Is it a success? Is it somewhere in |
| 0:06.3 | between? There's probably a lot that you don't actually know about the Lightning Network. So I've got |
| 0:11.1 | Matt Kimmel swapping in for Colin today on Bitcoin Season 2, Riders Room. Bitcoin Season 2 is |
| 0:17.0 | brought to you by Arch Network, the platform for building bridgeless apps on Bitcoin. |
| 0:22.5 | More on Arch later on the show. Let's kick it off. |
| 0:32.5 | Okay, I'm here with Matt Kimmel. Welcome to Bitcoin Season 2, Matt. Thanks for swapping in for Colin. |
| 0:39.8 | Super happy to be here. |
| 0:41.2 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:42.2 | I love the intro to the show, by the way. |
| 0:44.6 | I don't know if I've ever told that to you. |
| 0:46.7 | Oh, it's a banger. |
| 0:48.0 | It's a banger intro. |
| 0:49.4 | One of the nice parts about being like a part-time, like music guy like I am, is that I can find |
| 0:55.5 | pretty sick beats for a podcast. Basically, I need to like start to know more podcasts so I can |
| 1:00.4 | have all my cool like B-roll audio in the background. But that's enough about that. People don't |
| 1:05.7 | know who you are. You are a regular on the other block space media, you're in the extended |
| 1:12.6 | block space universe. And I've got you in because Colin is AFK today. And we were chatting |
| 1:23.3 | before this and we want to talk about the Lightning Network. And while you're kind of like an analyst on other Bitcoin stuff, |
| 1:29.5 | you've done your tour of duty in the Lightning Network R&D game. |
| 1:36.1 | And I think it's a good time to reflect as we look to maybe a software |
| 1:41.5 | happening in 2025 to like reflect on like |
| 1:45.7 | one of the biggest narratives in Bitcoin |
... |
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