Cryptocurrency News Now!: Lightning Stalls Out ⚡

Monday, June 3, 2019

Lightning Stalls Out ⚡

June 3, 2019	View in browser

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Today's top reads

Lightning Network stalls
Mining difficulty peaks
DEXs still lag
Used for speculating
McAfee's bet

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Market update

COIN	PRICE	7-DAY
BTC	$8,485.19	- 2.87%
ETH	$263.81	- 2.32%
XRP	$0.443	+ 7.04%
BCH	$426.92	- 1.60%
LTC	$112.57	- 1.89%

1. Lightning Network stalls

The Lightning Network has stalled. Since March, bitcoin's most popular scaling solution has barely seen any growth - despite healthy growth from its underlying asset.

According to Bitcoin Visuals, a tool that tracks the growth of the Lightning Network, the number of channels and network capacity have seen an actual downturn with only the number of connected nodes ever so slightly increasing.

Network Capacity
The blue line follows BTC. Orange follows USD.

Channels

The surprising part? During this time, the average bitcoin fee actually spiked to $4.16 - a level not seen since 2018. One would think this would influence more use of the Lightning Network for faster and cheaper transactions, but instead, we've seen the opposite.

However, this makes perfect sense according to one Reddit user:

"People don't want to use LN when tx fees are high because it costs too much to open a channel. People don't want to use LN when tx fees are low because then they can just send transactions cheaply directly on-chain."

And it's true. Many agree that the Lightning Network is a major pain to use for the average consumer - not a great feature for a scaling solution to carry.

The bottom line: The Lightning Network is still in its infancy and needs some nurturing before it flies, but the downturn in growth for the last three months could be a cause for concern.

2. Mining difficulty peaks

It's never been more difficult to mine bitcoin. On Friday, the bitcoin network punched through its previous mining difficulty ceiling to a new record high of 7.46T - just barely beating the previous high of 7.45T set on October 2018.

While miners might not be happy, it's actually a good look for the network. Basically, more difficulty means more confidence in the network - a positive metric for investors.

But mining difficulty isn't the only fundamental taking a turn for the better this year.

Daily transactions are booming. On-chain activity is closing in on all-time highs after steady growth this year.
CME futures go wild. Institutions may finally be here with total open interest on bitcoin futures spiking to 5,190.

Could it be true? Is crypto winter really over? Well, with a set of strong fundamentals and a healthy price gain, bitcoin only seems to be gaining strength with each day.

More than that, the infamous bitcoin halvening is now less than a year away - a stark reminder of the asset's scarcity.

3. DEXs still lag

DEXs aren't cutting it. While decentralized exchanges (DEX) are still hailed as an amazing feat - a way to exchange decentralized assets in a decentralized way - they have yet to gain any traction.

To put it into perspective, IDEX, ethereum's most popular DEX, has daily trading volumes that are over 660 times smaller than the world's largest centralized exchange, Binance. We're talking millions versus billions.

It really makes no sense. Why would someone want to partake in the decentralized society only to perform all their transactions on a centralized exchange? Well there's a few reasons:

DEXs have no liquidity. It's the chicken and the egg problem. No adoption means no volume, but no volume means no adoption.
DEXs lack features. While some DEXs are beginning to offer tools to trade on margin or short tokens, the features are few and far between - usually with poor user interfaces too.
DEXs piss off regulators. Without know-your-customer (KYC) policies in place, DEXs are bound to piss off regulators. Just last week, Binance's new DEX announced it would be geoblocking 29 countries for this very reason.

In the end, however, those issues are enough to keep centralized exchanges in the limelight.

The takeaway is clear: users would rather use the most convenient product, regardless of decentralization.

4. Used for speculating

Only 1.3%. That's the percent of transactions that came from merchants so far this year, according to blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis in a recent Bloomberg report.

Though it's actually an increase over the 0.9% seen last year during the bear market, the number still tells the same story: bitcoin's high volatility and expected price increases only disincentivize spending.

Further, 89.7% of all bitcoin transactions are exchange-related - cementing the reality that bitcoin's only use case, for now, is speculation, not as a currency.

The verdict is clear: If bitcoin is going to gain mainstream adoption and overtake fiat currencies, its stakeholders can't be treating it only as a gambling device.

[A MESsage from Framed Tweets]

5. McAfee's bet

On July 17, 2017, John McAfee told the world he would "eat [his] dick on national television" if Bitcoin didn't hit $500,000 within three years.

Well, he's almost got less than one year left - and hardly a chance at Bitcoin reaching $500,000 in that timeframe.

Now, Framed Tweets and Unbankd are teaming up to give you an exclusive discount on the one-of-a-kind, "Eat My Dick" framed tweet.

Grab a piece of crypto Twitter history when you use the code "UNBANKD" to get 20% off your order today.

P.S. You can pay with crypto:)

6. You should also know

Microsoft officially added bitcoin as a currency on its Excel program.
Crypto-focused venture capitalist Alex Thorn uncovered the breakdown of United States government blockchain analytics spending since 2015.
Moneybutton.com launched an identity system called PayMail that lets users transact in BSV using email addresses instead of long strings of pubkeys.
Binance launched a new GBP-backed stablecoin and is currently testing the asset.

7. 42% in the dark

From last week's poll, 42% of respondents answered that they own privacy-focused cryptocurrencies.

Did you know? There are over 54 different privacy-focused cryptocurrencies in the world that comprises a total sector market capitalization of $3.1 billion.