In itself, Bitcoin is too slow and too expensive for everyday payments. The Lightning networks are intended to remedy this.
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Bitcoin is a decentralized and interesting alternative for sending values digitally. However, like most other blockchains, the network is struggling with scaling problems. Bitcoin only achieves around seven transactions per second. Compared to central payment systems such as VISA or Mastercard, this is negligible. Visa states that it can process more than 65,000 transactions per second.
In order to establish itself as a serious means of payment, there is therefore an urgent need to increase capacity.
One attempt to speed up bitcoin is the Lightning network. It belongs to the so-called Layer 2 technologies. These try to carry out as many transactions as possible outside the blockchain and only process absolutely necessary transactions on the blockchain itself. This allows payments to be processed within a few seconds.
