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Bitcoin transaction fees hit decade lows, here’s why

April 6, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Analysis

The cost of moving Bitcoin across the network has hit decade lows as Lightning Network, batching, miner behavior and protocol improvements have driven costs down.

It’s a great time to move Bitcoin (BTC) between wallets and exchanges. Bitcoin transaction fees have hit all-time lows in BTC, according to research by Galaxy Digital.

#bitcoin fees are at all-time lows. the craziest thing? fall 2021 was the first bull run not accompanied by a major spike in fees.

how is that possible? what does it mean? here's a thread explaining the most confounding (and awesome) chart in bitcoin. (remember june 2021) pic.twitter.com/gnWssTckX2
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) April 5, 2022

As shown on the graph below, the Bitcoin mean transaction fee has plummeted to 0.00004541 Bitcoin ($2.06) in 2022, while the median is 0.00001292 Bitcoin ($0.59) which is the lowest of any year except 2011, according to the report.

*Graph to show the fees trending down since 2013. Source: Galaxy Digital*

According to Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital, a combination of growing Segwit adoption, batching transactions, growth in the Lightning Network, a collapse in miners selling and the “reduced OP_Return usage” have caused the drop in fees not seen for over a decade.

Lead on-chain analyst at Glassnode, James Check, agreed with Thorn, explaining to Cointelegraph that “batching and Segwit are certainly part of the mix,” because the combination will increase the number of transactions that fit in a block, and thus increase throughput and decrease fee pressure.

He shared the following graph to show that Segwit adoption “increased significantly at the May-July lows.”

Nonetheless, Check continues, “This is not the whole story…”:

“The number one reason I believe fees are low is we had a 50% collapse in price in May which absolutely decimated retail interest.”

He suggests that “all three [fees, active addresses and transaction counts] collapsed after the May sell-off.”

*Fees (orange), active addresses (blue), transaction counts (purple), and BTC price (gray). Source: Glassnode.*

"This, in my view was the likely commencing of a bear market and even with the price run-up, we saw a great many people financially burned, and thus out of the market.”

Eric Yakes, the author of The 7th Property: Bitcoin and the Monetary Revolution, told Cointelegraph, “We’re witnessing a structural change in the market dynamics and historical correlations maintain little value.”

Regarding the future of the network, the “$70M raised by lighting labs to build a stablecoin and asset protocol,” is a key development for the Bitcoin protocol. He added that “it’s important for transaction fees to trend lower as they are the primary limitation to scaling a network in a decentralized manner.”

Ultimately, while transaction fees are a boon for wallet admin and opening lightning channels, it could be a sign that retail interest has dried up. For Check, “look no further than ye olde Google trends to see just how popular the orange coin is right now,” suggesting that “there is near zero inflow of new users.”

*Google trends search interest for Bitcoin has trended lower since the April/May peak.*

Yakes has the last word regarding the emergence of Bitcoin:

“Bitcoin needs the lightning network to continue its pace of growth and a thriving network of smart contract development to emerge.”

Visa should be ‘scared’: Lightning Labs raises $70M to add stablecoins

April 6, 2022 Coin Telegraph

<div>Visa should be 'scared': Lightning Labs raises M to add stablecoins</div>

Bitcoin

The firm has built a new protocol called Taro to enable stablecoins to be sent and received on the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Bitcoin software firm Lightning Labs has secured a large funding round enabling it to further develop the Lightning Network for faster, cheaper Bitcoin and stablecoin transactions.

The $70 million Series B funding round was led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Goldcrest Capital, and several other angel investors. Lightning Labs builds additional features and software for the Lightning Network (LN), Bitcoin’s layer-two transaction solution.

The funding will be channeled into a new protocol it has developed called Taro, which will enable stablecoins to be transferred using the LN, according to reports. Lightning Labs will not issue stablecoins, but the infrastructure will allow them to be sent over the network.

Stablecoin transactions were made possible with the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade in November 2021, which also introduced smart contract capabilities.

The firm believes that Taro will enable further Bitcoin adoption as it potentially allows the unbanked in developing countries to send money using stablecoins.

Speaking to Forbes, Elizabeth Stark, CEO and co-founder of Lightning Labs, said, “That’s really significant because the potential here is for all the world's currencies to route through Bitcoin over the Lightning Network.” Speaking to Tech Crunch, she added:

“If I were Visa, I’d be scared because there are a lot of people out there that have mobile phones, but now don’t need to tap into the traditional system.”

Lightning Labs raised $10 million from its Series A in September, which followed a $2.5 million seed round in 2018.

The LN is currently being used extensively in El Salvador, the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. It has also been put into action on the payments platform Strike and the tipping tool on Twitter. The current network collateral is 3,693 BTC, worth around $167 million, a 5.8% increase over the past month, according to the stats.

Stablecoins are now an integral part of the digital currency ecosystem and are slowly being accepted by global regulators. The latest to give fiat-pegged assets the green light is the United Kingdom's Economic and Finance Ministry which intends to adjust the existing regulatory framework to incorporate stablecoins as a payment method.

Lightning Labs Plans Stablecoin Protocol on Bitcoin

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US grassroots adoption: the Bitcoin Lightning party in Portland

March 31, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Community

A grassroots Bitcoin Lightning festival in Portland, U.S. demonstrated that the Lightning Network is the perfect companion for payments.

There is “grassroots evidence” that “America is adopting Bitcoin,” according to Clay Graham, founder of Rapaygo and a Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN) enthusiast.

At a Bitcoin Lightning festival held in Portland, United States over the weekend, the Bitcoin LN clocked more than $200 (four million Sats) in just three hours.

Hailed as “Puddle Town on Lightning Rails,” Portland’s Bitcoin Party was a space where “vendors, food carts, artists all accept Bitcoin.” Graham told Cointelegraph that there was also a “food cart pod” that acted as a “business attraction destination to Bitcoin fans who want a Bitcoin beach type experience.”

*The "mobile Bitcoin development lab for embedded research and development,". Source: Graham*

Fiat money was of course, not allowed, and popular Bitcoiner Dennis Porter MC’d at the festival. In this tweet he showed how easy it is to pay for goods using the LN:

I paid ZERO fees to accept #Bitcoin instantly for my shirts. Can Visa do that? pic.twitter.com/34haSgIB6G
— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) March 28, 2022

Graham told Cointelegraph that the event was judged to be a success if “people could spend Bitcoin freely as they would fiat.” In total there were:

"50 people spending over 4M sats in 3 hours, 3 food carts and 7 vendors selling anything they want while even supporting use cases like 'tipping the DJ'."

Graham concluded that the LN made payments at the party a breeze: it was “easier than cash, all cheaper than cards and having tons of fun on a sunny day.”

*Dennis Porter MC'ing at the event in front of 'The Bitcoin Standard' books and Bitcoin t-shirts. Source: Twitter*

A near-instant layer-2 payment network built on top of the Bitcoin base chain, the LN is ideal for a party setting. Pubinno, the company behind the Lightning pour a pint tool was built with festivals in mind, while LNBits build open-source payments tools like split payments tools and offline solutions to make payments tech even smoother.

*The LN tech used at the festival, enabling fast print outs of receipts. Source: Twitter*

Tiago Vasconcelos, cofounder of Aceita Bitcoin and an LNBits FOSS contributor told Cointelegraph:

“With the LN the only thing you need is an internet connection! No card swipe hardware, no need for cash, no need for changing currency [even] if the venue is international and with lots of foreign people.”

Built on the LN, LNBits’ free open source solutions are closely competing with Visa and Mastercard. Vasconcelos adds that the “network fees are near to zero, or even zero, and ultimately are paid by the customer, not the merchant!” Plus, “using LN reduces the costs, and risks, of using Visa or Mastercard.”

Ultimately, some Bitcoiners are even keen for scammers to learn about the LN, and for Graham:

“The LN is so fast and transactions can clear as fast as faster than cards so both the buyer and seller don't feel that ‘where has my money gone’ feeling when they are just trying to have fun on a sunny day.”

*Snacks and trinkets featuring LN QR codes at the festival. Source: Graham*

Plus, it’s a payment network that supports “artists, people who made stuff with their own hands and small businesses.” And there’s more of a local connection to money–and more sovereignty–because for the Portland Bitcoin Party, “the nodes that routed payments for the LN are mostly made liquid in Portland.”

Following Portland's success, Graham added that “Kansas city has already reached out on how to boilerplate this party," using his company's solutions.

“Remember that within a year of Bitcoin beach el Salvador announced legal tender. Now we can have Bitcoin beach in every town.”

Kraken users report Bitcoin Lightning Network availability

March 30, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Kraken was previously aiming to implement the BItcoin Lightning Network in 2021 after officially announcing the plan in late 2020.

Major American cryptocurrency exchange Kraken reportedly started implementing the Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network for users a bit later than the firm originally planned.

Bitcoin maximalist Mr.Hodl took to Twitter on Wednesday to report that Kraken has implemented the Lightning Network. He attached a screenshot of the supposed new Kraken withdrawal process allowing users to complete a withdrawal request from a Lightning wallet to receive BTC from their accounts.

“The Lightning network runs on top of the Bitcoin blockchain to enable more uses of Bitcoin,” Kraken’s withdrawal notice on the screenshot reads.

It's official! @krakenfx has implemented the Lightning Network.

Congrats @jespow, @brianchoffman, @BitcoinIsSaving and the rest of the Kraken guys.

(Screw Dan Held though ) https://t.co/tF5CP7JB5A pic.twitter.com/6LikdzdJ18
— Mr.Hodl (@MrHodl) March 29, 2022

It appears that no other Kraken users have reported the supposed BTC Lightning implementation on the platform so far. Instead, some Kraken customers said that they didn’t have the Lightning option to withdraw BTC as of Tuesday, suggesting that the Lightning implementation should be extended for all accounts within 24 hours.

The first reports on Kraken’s BTC Lightning application surfaced in mid-March, with cryptocurrency enthusiasts suggesting the implementation start based on data from the Lightning Network explorer known as Amboss.

A spokesperson for Amboss told Cointelegraph on March 16 that the explorer received a “network gossip” broadcasting its node alias as Kraken with an octopus and a lightning emoji, noting that any node could theoretically change their alias and act as an imposter. “But this is already a very large node at 7 BTC in capacity,” the representative said, adding:

“Kraken has not contacted us to verify that this node is theirs using our standard Twitter plus digital signature verification process to prove ownership. However, judging by the restrictive channel policies, their choice of channel peers and the size of their nodes and channels, this appears to be legitimate.”

At the time of writing, the total capacity of Kraken’s alleged node alias capacity on Lightning amounts to more than 2.8 billion satoshis, or 28 BTC, according to Amboss data.

Kraken did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s requests for comment.

As previously reported, Kraken officially announced plans to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network in late 2020, scheduling the implementation for 2021. Some crypto observers chuckled about exchanges like Kraken taking long to integrate Lightning as some candidates for the United States Congress have managed to adopt it before.

A candidate for US Congress adopted Lightning before Binance, Coinbase, Robinhood, And Kraken.#Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/i2e5G2rTOj
— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) November 30, 2021

Released in March 2018, the Lightning Network is a Bitcoin layer-two protocol designed to provide faster and cheaper BTC transactions. Bitfinex is believed to be the first crypto exchange in the world to enable Lightning payments by integrating the protocol in December 2019.

Lightning Network

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