BitFury Successfully Completes Their First Live Bitcoin Transaction on the Lighting Network

With all of the focus on SegWit activation, Bitcoin users tend to forget the Lightning Network is still a real thing. Although a viable implementation of this concept is still far away, progress is being made. BitFury successfully completed their Bitcoin transaction on the Lightning Network as we speak.It is worth noting their test was completed by using LND, a lightning implementation developed by Lightning Labs.

It is quite interesting to see BitFury complete a Bitcoin transaction on the Lightning Network. The company has been working on their own implementation for some time now. However, their own version requires SegWit activation on the Bitcoin network. While it seems that will finally happen, the company is exploring other implementations of the Lightning Network as well. Using LND is one way to go about things. More importantly, this test transaction took place on the main net, which means anyone can see them through a block explorer.

BitFury Takes a big Step Toward Faster Bitcoin Payments

More specifically, two individual Lightning transactions were created by BitFury. One simulates a payment channel between different users on the network. The other was a test to experiment with paying through a third party. This latter method doesn’t require any trust, though. Both test transactions were successful, which is good to see. Additionally, this validates the fact how users could make thousands of transactions at no extra cost. This test further validates how the Lightning Network will bring a lot of positive momentum to Bitcoin as a whole.

It is worth mentioning BitFury is not the first entity to complete a successful test of this kind. However, those other tests have all taken place on the testnet. These are the first two transactions to be visible on the main Bitcoin blockchain. That in itself is quite an impressive feat, to say the least. The bigger question is whether or not additional tests will take place on the main net anytime soon. Now that BIP91 has been locked in, Segregated Witness will activate sooner or later.

According to the company, the Lightning Network is an essential technology for Bitcoin. Making this feature accessible to the rest of the community is a top priority. For now, there is no official ETA as to when this will happen exactly, though. With the lightning network in place, Bitcoin will enter a completely new era of digital payments. Rest assured the community is anxiously awaiting this new payment layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. Real-time payments at lower fees with a scaling solution in place will yield some interesting changes.