Lightning Network Reaches Marathon 600 BTC Capacity

The Lightning Network on Bitcoin passed a fresh milestone this week, taking its overall capacity to over 600 BTC ($2 million) for the first time.
The previous day proved to be particularly successful for the Bitcoin mainnet Lightning implementation, capacity growing by 21 BTC in 24 hours. Now with a total capacity of 601 BTC ($2,053,000), Lightning has added 15 percent over the past month.
Other metrics also showed improvements. The total node count now sits at 5768, the equivalent of a 16 percent monthly rise, while there are now 22,750 channels – 36 percent more than a month ago.
The news coincides with the increasing adoption of the technology. As Bitcoinist reported, an ongoing awareness campaign, Lightning Torch, aims to pass a transaction around the network, with each user adding to its size.
Beyond community-initiated projects, bonafide user-ready apps continue to bridge the gap between Lightning’s technical beginnings and mainstream understanding of its uses.
Bitcoinist released a two-part guide to the emerging ecosystem this week.