Bitcoin sell-off and Lightning Network?

Bitcoin supposedly had one of its biggest sell-offs since 2015, causing the value to drop below £10,000. Bitcoin has not been at that mark since the beginning of December and this caused pandemonium among many Bitcoin traders. Including one of the co-founders of Bitcoin.com who sold all his bitcoins and invested this into an alternative currency, BitcoinCash.

Since the sell-off the value of Bitcoin has risen steadily back up to £11,000. However, this has rocked the boat for some owners of the cryptocurrency and many are not fans of the rising costs of transactions. The average transaction fee has risen above £37 beacuse of the demand for new transactions exceeding the networks capacity.

Again, Bitcoin cannot grow without expanding the network capacity and decreasing transaction times. The solution is to introduce a lightning network that could resolve Bitcoin’s scalability issues. It works by allowing transactions to bypass the recording of the transactions on the blockchain. Payment channels are opened between the senders and recipients and then conduct transactions off the blockchain, resulting in lightning quick transactions. These channels create payment networks that allow payments to go through seperate channels to make their way to the intended recipient. It has been confirmed that it will be integrated in to the Bitcoin network but it is still under development.

References
Butinex, JP(22.12.2017) http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/12/22/bitcoins-average-transaction-fee-surpasses-50-network-issues-remain/