Amazon.com and Google Cloud are two of the largest Bitcoin Lightning Network hosts. Collectively, they account for a 48.5% share, with a capacity of around 3022 BTC. The list also features other prominent entities. However, the share is not substantial. Alibaba hosts 4 nodes, accounting for 2.3%. On the other hand, Vodafone Germany, and Comcast Cable host 60 and 119 nodes respectively, with their capacity accounting for roughly 0.7% respectively.
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Over the past week, the number of nodes and channels has not registered any major addition. They rose in number by only 0.5% and 0.3% in the last 7 days. At press time, the Bitcoin Lightning Network had over 15,601 nodes and 68,196 channels.
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The Economical Burden
The Lightning Network has made the process of moving Bitcoin between institutions relatively instant, and frictionless. However, it comes with a cost. In a recent Preston Pysh podcast, the CEO and CTO at River, Alexander Leishman, explained,
“For consumers who want to run their own nodes, they need someone to open a channel with them, so that they can they can receive payment. Well, that’s really challenging economically because that means someone else has to lock up capital [in the form of BTC], and put that on the Lightning Network to facilitate a future payment.”
Centralized institutions are in a better position because the volume of Bitcoin moving between them is fairly high. Since a lot of transactional activity happens among them, they “get a lot” out of putting up “a little bit” of capital. However, with lower volume destination customers, small merchants, etc. the scenario changes. It is challenging to run a small node on the Lightning Network, and as a result, there are still question marks over their economic viability. Leishman added,
“I think it won’t be cheap, and some people will be willing to pay that price, and many won’t.”
Consequentially, the Bitcoin Lightning Network continues to depend on well-established node operators and centralized cloud services to sustain itself.
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