Bitcoin Magazine’s Week in Review: Lightning and Sparks Fly

Lightning continues to strike as more and more companies announce that they are including in their products the new Lightning Network protocol that recently entered beta. Sparks also flared up at the Deconomy conference in South Korea when Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon challenged Craig S. Wright’s legitimacy.

And, while India joins a growing list of countries that has announced further restrictions on digital currencies and who can use them, the CEO of NVIDIA announced on CNBC that cryptocurrencies were here to stay.

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Featured stories by Amy Castor, Colin Harper, Nick Marinoff and Aaron van Wirdum

The History of Lightning: From Brainstorm to Beta 

As of a couple of weeks ago, the first Lightning implementation — lnd — is officially in beta. The second implementation — eclair — followed last week, while the third — c-lightning — is expected to do so soon. As such, the Lightning Network, the long-awaited Bitcoin overlay network for cheap and instant transactions, is by many of its developers considered safe enough to use on Bitcoin’s mainnet: a major milestone for the technology that has been years in the making.

In our featured cover story this month, tech writer Aaron van Wirdum recounts the story behind this important addition to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon Call Out Craig Wright at Deconomy 2018

Sparks flew at the Deconomy blockchain forum this week in Seoul, South Korea, following a presentation by self-proclaimed “Satoshi Nakamoto,” Craig S. Wright, when he was challenged by Ethereum creator, Vitalik Buterin, and called a “fraud.” The Q&A session heated up again when Joseph Poon, who helped to write the Lightning Network white paper, declared that even he didn’t understand Wright’s representation of how the protocol worked.

NVIDIA CEO: “Cryptocurrency Is Here to Stay”

Although the cryptocurrency markets continue their downward trend, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently claimed that “cryptocurrency is here to stay,” and he “doesn’t see the craze ending anytime soon,” while speaking with Mad Money host Jim Cramer. Interestingly, Huang noted that while the NVIDIA chips were no doubt powerful and crucial to the mining industry, he and his fellow executives are “not ready to move” on this market segment specifically just yet.

In a Blow to Bitcoin, India Bans Banks from Dealing in Cryptocurrencies

Another country has cracked down on cryptocurrencies as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced, in a press release on April 5, 2018, that it is banning banks and regulated financial entities from dealing with digital currencies. While India has not given up on the idea of issuing a cryptocurrency of its own, this means is that banks will no longer be able to transfer money to a crypto wallet or to an exchange. Regulated entities already providing such services will have three months to wind down their cryptocurrency-related operations.

Not a Month Into Beta, Lightning Applications Continue to Grow

Bitcoin Magazine just wrote about the first Lightning implementation being in beta a couple weeks ago and now developers have introduced LApps for the network that look outside the limits of mere wallet and payment channel functionality.

While these applications can run on either Bitcoin’s mainnet or testnet, their developers generally recommend that users stick to testnet payments until the Lightning Network’s kinks are ironed out. But with more than 1,000 nodes already supporting Lightning’s mainnet, it shouldn’t be long before LApps are widely adopted.