Lightning Network

Lightning moves bitcoin through payment channels without publishing every payment to the blockchain. Participants update signed channel states; routed payments use conditional contracts so intermediaries cannot simply take the funds. Bitcoin’s base layer remains the court of final settlement. A channel can send only from the balance available on its outgoing side and receive only into available inbound capacity. Wallets hide some complexity, but routing, backups, uptime and channel management remain real trade-offs. A route may lack capacity, fees may exceed the payer’s limit, a node may be offline or channel information may be stale. Wallets retry alternative paths, sometimes splitting a payment. Fast everyday success is an emergent network property, not a guarantee that every invoice always completes. Routing nodes may charge base and proportional fees. Opening, closing and managing liquidity can add costs; Lightning is not always free or cheaper.