According to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin's layer 2 Lightning Network has experienced an estimated 1,212% growth in two years, with around 6.6 million routed transactions in August 2023, a significant increase compared to August 2021's 503,000 transactions. The data comes from Bitcoin-only exchange River. In an October 10 report, River research analyst Sam Wouters explained that the jump in routed transactions, which use more than two nodes to facilitate a transfer, occurred despite a 44% fall in Bitcoin's price and considerably less online search interest.
River's 6.6 million figure for Lightning routed transactions is a lower-bound estimate, meaning it is the smallest possible value the firm could assess. The company also sourced August 2021's 503,000 figure from a 2021 study by K33, formerly Arcane Research, and added that it could not assess private Lightning transactions or those between only two participants. In August 2023, $78.2 million in transaction volume was processed on Lightning, marking a 546% increase from August 2021's $12.1 million figure sourced by K33. Wouters noted that Lightning is now processing at least 47% of Bitcoin's on-chain transactions.
River estimated that between 279,000 and 1.1 million Lightning users were active in September 2023. The firm attributed 27% of transaction growth to the gaming, social media tipping, and streaming sectors. River reported that the Lightning payments success rate was 99.7% on its platform in August 2023 across 308,000 transactions. The main reason for failure occurs when no payment route can be found that has enough liquidity to facilitate the transfer. River's data set consisted of 2.5 million transactions, with the nodes in River's data set representing 29% of all the capacity on the network and 10% of payment channels.
