Bitcoin's Lightning Network Is Live, But Can It Keep from Going Corporate?

Not yet out of beta, hundreds of developers around the world are already experimenting with bitcoin's newest technology - the Lightning Network - donating time and resources to help lay the groundwork for a more scalable version of the oldest and largest cryptocurrency yet created.

So great has been the effort that there are now more than 1,000 lightning nodes estimated to be running the software on live computers, largely at a loss, but motivated by the greater gain of making the bitcoin network more accessible and affordable. Still, with the network entering its bootstrapping phase, some are beginning to question when the economics of scale may begin to bring new pressures.

As the bitcoin community saw with the rise of cryptocurrency mining, in which at-home mining via PCs was quickly outpaced by industrial operations, profits attract corporate interests. And experts admit, it's entirely possible that companies could make money by offering easy access to quick cryptocurrency payments.

"If an entity is going to put a lot of value into payment channels and operate the node for generating profit," former BitGo engineer Jameson Lopp said. "Then it's probably going to be similar to mining."

Lopp's argument is that all networks, no matter how grassroots at the start, eventually give way to specialists who are simply better at offering a more reliable services at a more affordable cost. In the case of Lightning, almost anyone with the technical skills and a little cryptocurrency can run Lightning channels, but offering a service in the future might be different.

For example, users of the network might not always be able to rely on the availability of others they're sending money to, meaning intermediaries could emerge that offer services with better liquidity and payment routing.