Last week, Particl’s Core Developer and Cryptographer, Tecnovert, successfully conducted the first-ever Particl Lightning Network (LND) transaction (links below). Particl is an open-source and decentralized privacy platform built on the blockchain specifically designed to work with any cryptocurrency.
https://explorer-testnet.particl.io/tx/bd6f69315e9413e5f8b987fb676d192c28e8e1b15a611701bf1cdecb090f9552
(Fee: 0.00000963 PART)
https://explorer-testnet.particl.io/tx/aa55ef38ee1f619de8ea00d02a403f2508bae87d98978d868230e8a67e804b72
(Fee: 0.00001831 PART)
The Lightning Network (LND) is a payment protocol that runs parallel to a blockchain. It enables fast payments at a near-zero fee and can scale extremely well, making it ideal to accommodate large numbers of transactions per second. The Lightning Network can, in theory, support many more transactions per second than to credit card providers and popular online payment processors.
LND will support the Particl blockchain and allow it to support large amounts of traffic without being negatively impacted by it. It is an important piece for the envisioned Particl technology stack and is instrumental to the network’s ability to reach mainstream adoption.
What the Lightning Network also enables is the decentralized, cross-chain exchange of cryptocurrencies. When two blockchains both have compatible Lightning Network implementations running, cross-chain cryptocurrency trades can be executed without any intermediary being required to ensure both parties stay honest and honor their end of the deal. This type of exchange is very similar to atomic swaps, but potentially more flexible.
Lightning Network (LND)
- What are the Benefits? – The Lightning Network provides many benefits to the blockchains that are compatible with it and opt to implement it.
- Instant Payments – Lightning-fast blockchain payments without worrying about block confirmation times. Security is enforced by blockchain smart-contracts without creating a blockchain transaction for individual payments. Payment speed measured in milliseconds to seconds.
- Scalability – Capable of millions to billions of transactions per second across the network. Capacity blows away legacy payment rails by many orders of magnitude. Attaching payment per action/click is now possible without custodians.
- Low Cost – By transacting and settling off-blockchain, the Lightning Network allows for exceptionally low fees, which allows for emerging use cases such as instant micro-payments.
- Cross Blockchains – Cross-chain atomic swaps can occur off-chain instantly with heterogeneous blockchain consensus rules. So long as the chains can support the same cryptographic hash function, it is possible to make transactions across blockchains without trust in 3rd party custodians.
“There is still a lot to do, more stability to achieve, and more testing required before Particl LND can be used with real funds. This script lays the foundation of what will later become a much more user-friendly integration of the Lightning Network on Particl, but at the moment, it is still reserved for the more advanced users. One thing we are particularly excited with is the integration of Confidential Transactions onto the Lightning Network, or what we like to call BlindedLightning. This untraceable version of the Lightning Network will become an important piece of Particl’s technology stack and will let the public benefit from a lightning fast currency that provably respects their right to privacy!”
